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Georgia
The Cost of Sprawl: How Much Does it Cost to Drive to Work?
As bigger and cheaper homes pull people ever farther from their
jobs, they pay the hidden sprawl price in commuting costs, not
realizing or not caring that the combined cost of owning and
operating a new car was put by the American Automobile Association
at 50.2 cents a mile, including loan interest, tax, registration,
insurance, gas, maintenance and depreciation. According to U.S.
Department of Labor 1999-2000 data, this translates to an average
of $6,829 (18.1%) in annual household spending for transportation
across the Atlanta metro area, compared to $8,254 (21.9%) for
housing, with equivalent national figures of $7,118 and $7.114
(both 18.7%). But many Atlanta families in outlying suburbs are
paying more for transportation than for housing, reports
Atlanta-Journal Constitution writer Janet Frankston, with
Carrie and David Wolford of Hiram, Paulding County, calculating
their commuting costs at $1,230 a month versus a $1,100 mortgage,
and Misuk and Michael Rodgers of Stockbridge, Henry County, citing
theirs as $898 and $858, respectively. Although transportation
takes a big bite out of family budgets, some mortgage lenders,
including Bank of America, gloss over its impact on borrowers' cash
flow. Not the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta, whose chief
economist Richard Fritz stresses the need to ask not only ''where
people are going to live and can they afford it,'' but also ''where
they are going to work and can they afford to get there?'' Consumer
driving needs are also important to many car insurance companies
that offer low-mileage discount rates, in the case of Allstate
Insurance Co. for driving fewer than 7,500 miles a year. Still,
owning a suburban home, which ''will increase massively in value
over time,'' is part of the American dream, says Rutgers University
urban policy professor Robert Burchell, and that's why people are
''absolutely willing to do it.'' -- Atlanta-Journal
Constitution
12/9/2002
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