Very interesting read, especially the comments. The big problem with living in a place where you depend upon a car to get around is price volatility. If gas suddenly spikes from $1.50 to $6 per gallon you really have no choice but to pay it. When you depend upon walking, biking, or public transit your costs are pretty much fixed, or slowly increase with inflation. When you depend upon auto, besides price fluctuations, you pay WAY more to get around. The most I would ever pay for transportation here is $89 per month with an unlimited ride Metrocard. I could pay as little as $0 per month if I don't need to take the subway. With a car, I'm forced to make insurance payments of at least $3000 a year even if the car sits in my driveway ( and that's just basic liability insurance on a clunker-figure 2 or 3 times that much on a decent new car ). And then I still have registration and inspection fees. This is all before I drive a single mile. Cars are a hideously expensive way to get around. Even though some of the comments mentioned that the auto industry keeps lots of people employed, I take another view. If they didn't spend that money on cars, they would end up spending it on other things which would create jobs. And these other things wouldn't have as steep societal costs as auto use does.
And then there are other factors such as time. Time spend on long auto commutes is non-productive time. Time which could be spent doing things you like more, or perhaps even earning more money. True that housing prices in the city are often higher than the surrounding suburbs. However, that's not the whole story. People as a rule are very bad at figuring total cost of ownership. All they see is the initial purchase price of the home. They don't see the often much higher real estate taxes in the suburbs. For example, our real estate taxes are under $4000 a year. A similar house in one of the suburbs, either Long Island or New Jersey, might have real estate taxes three or four times as high. What you save on real estate taxes can finance an extra $100,000 or more of mortgage. Not needing to own one or two cars, plus their operating costs, might be able to finance another $100,000 in mortgage. And salaries in the city are generally higher. In the end a house in the city is probably more affordable than one in the suburbs once all these factors are considered. Plus you have a lot less volatility. Your transportation costs are most or less fixed. It's really the price volatility of auto transportation causing the most problems. This is especially true if your budget was already stretched thin to start with.
