Scott Bernstein: MSP needs more ‘location efficiency,’ less out-of-pocket spending on transportation | Cityscape
Scott Bernstein: MSP needs more ‘location efficiency,’ less out-of-pocket spending on transportation By Steve Berg | Wednesday, May 18, 2011
At the moment, governments and households share one overriding concern: saving money. Scott Bernstein has devised a formula – and a way of thinking – that should help on both fronts. cnt.org Scott Bernstein
Bernstein founded Chicago’s Center for Neighborhood Technology in 1978 and has long been one of the urban design world’s most innovative thinkers. His formula gives families a more accurate picture of the costs of choosing to live where they live. And it gives communities a clearer assessment of the development decisions they make. All in all, Bernstein’s formula invites households and communities to consider saving boatloads of cash by gradually shifting the spatial arrangement of cities and towns in ways that provide more opportunities for convenience, proximity and transit connections.
The H+T Index Bernstein calls his formula the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index . Here’s how it works: It’s a rule of thumb in the United States that a household shouldn’t spend more than 30 percent of income on housing. That’s a pretty good guide in the abstract. By that reckoning, 70 percent of Americans live in neighborhoods they can afford. But what happens when you add in transportation costs? Volatile gasoline prices, the spreading out of jobs and other daily destinations, and the need for more cars per household has dramatically increased transportation expenses over the past few decades. When you add in the cost of insurance, car repairs and other incidentals, transportation quickly becomes a family’s second biggest expense after housing. Bernstein calculates that, as a rule of thumb, households should strive to spend not more than 15 percent of income on transportation. A more accurate guide, then, for families would be to consider housing and transportation together, and to avoid spending more than 45 percent of income on those two items. But therein lies the problem. When transportation is added, the percentage of Americans living in locations they can afford drops from 70 percent to 40 percent. ‘Drive till you qualify’ Bernstein sees no conspiracy in that sad fact. All kinds of factors go into decisions about where people choose to live. Issues of crime, schools, green space, personal space, local amenities and distance to jobs all play a part. But because transportation costs, unlike mortgage payments, are so fragmented, families tend not to consider them when selecting a home. “Drive till you qualify” has presented generations of Americans with the illusion of lower land and housing costs at the metropolitan edge when, in fact, the cost of a dozen family trips a day in multiple vehicles over longer distances tends to more than erase the cheap-house advantage. “Rising gasoline prices will only sharpen that realization,” Bernstein told me over coffee last week. His index shows not only how dramatically transportation can raise the costs in remote locations, it offers a road map for how families and communities can improve location efficiency. By plugging in data from the U.S. Census and other sources, Bernstein has mapped 337 metro regions. The cost of location One of his examples compares the cost of housing and transportation for living in Orono versus living in Minneapolis’ Seward neighborhood, near the University of Minnesota. On average, the same household would spend $1,830 a year less in Seward, Bernstein said. He also calculated the aggregate savings of emphasizing infill over continuing to rely almost solely on new developments at the metro edge. If 50 percent of new MSP households in the 2000-2030 period decided to locate in efficient locations (like Seward) rather than in edge communities (like Orono), an extra $345.1 million would flow into the local economy. Bernstein is not saying that families shouldn’t have the freedom to choose Orono or any edge community for any number of reasons. He is saying that local officials might reconsider public policies that tip the marketplace toward more expensive housing and job location choices on the suburban edge. McKnight Foundation
The map above shows, in blue, areas in the Twin Cities that are unaffordable to average people when it comes to housing. The map below, in blue, shows areas that are unaffordable when you factor in transportation costs as well. McKnight Foundation
With gasoline prices rising recently to $4 per gallon, Bernstein used his model to calculate average transportation costs for various MSP locations. The average monthly transportation cost for a household in a neighborhood like St. Paul’s St. Anthony Park would be $837. In Fridley the same household would spend $1,037. In Farmington the cost would rise to $1,201. “You have a lot of very inefficient areas and, in competitive terms, that’s not good for the region,” he said. Impact on the housing meltdown It hurts also that MSP’s job locations have become so decentralized. Twelve employment clusters in 1960 have expanded to 47 today, he said, making it much harder to use transit, walking and other efficient modes to connect people to jobs. That configuration, both here and elsewhere, played a significant role in the housing meltdown that began in 2008, he said. His map of the Chicago region, for example, shows big housing losses on the city’s South Side, where already marginalized people were evicted from their homes. But the preponderance of foreclosures show up in a broad and distinctive crescent running through the far suburban edge. A similar suburban arch appears around MSP and most major metro areas, Bernstein said. “We’re not saying that transportation costs caused the housing crisis,” he said. “We are saying that in the far suburbs transportation costs pushed many people over the edge.” A truer cost for elbow room Bernstein’s point is clear enough: Spatial configuration matters when it comes to locating homes, jobs and shopping/entertainment complexes in an efficient, affordable way. “There are places in this Twin Cities region where you have to jump in the car and burn a gallon of $4 gas to buy a gallon of $3 milk,” he said. “That’s crazy.” He points out that the United States expects to add 92 million people by 2030. How communities arrange and accommodate that growth will make a huge difference in cost and livability. Continuing to add nearly all growth to the edge will exacerbate traffic congestion, increase carbon footprints and heighten dependency on foreign oil. It will also raise infrastructure costs for governments and hit more and more Americans where it hurts most: in the pocketbook. “People aren’t going to change this pattern because they want to do something for the environment,” he said. “They will change when they realize how much it costs.” Bernstein had more to say about MSP’s spatial configuration affects its competitiveness as the economy recovers. We’ll take that up next week. Click to write a comment or read comments about this post. MinnPost.com Full RSS Articles brought to you by: MinnPost Young Professionals Network TwinWest Emerging Leaders happy hour 5 p.m. Wed., May 18
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