Ever wondered what percent of your income now goes to buying gasoline? In some areas, gas is now over a third of household income. That brings getting to work and back on fossil fuels almost as expensive as keeping a roof over your head. (Ideally, a mortgage should not be over a third of your income.)
A vast new mapping tool put out by the Housing and Transportation Affordability Index lets you zoom in on your neighborhood to see a great many indices of housing and transportation affordability in a series of interactive maps, that you can set to see a great deal of data that assess the costs of living in various regions, in various ways.
The site is a vast treasure trove of information. I just checked out one comparison:
I mapped (link) the cost of gas over the last eight years in the East Bay, and found just how much more it costs to live in the suburbs here than close to cities, for driving, in my area. (more…)