Carlessness

I just read an interesting set of posts on Half-Sigma about owning a car versus not owning a car. A New York Times blogger contends that living without a car is less expensive, and Half-Sigma begs to differ.

I would guess they are both right, depending on the city you live in and the lifestyle you lead. New York City is a very expensive place to live, but it is relatively cheap to move around in that city, and relatively expensive to own a car there. People who live there have compensated for this--apparently there are little grocery stores on every block, taxis galore, and a culture that expects the use of public transportation. The same is probably true for many big cities. (Not Las Vegas, though. Las Vegas is a horrible town to be car-less in.) So, in these cases, and if you had a small enough family, being without a car is cheaper.

If you live in a suburb, though, it becomes more expensive in terms of time and money to move around. Most suburbs don't have efficient public tranportation, if any. Shopping centers are not planned out with pedestrians in mind, which makes it more dangerous for both drivers and walkers. And people in the suburbs tend to have larger families. All of these things add up so that owning a car is less expensive (in terms of time and money) than not owning one, if it is even possible.

Of course, there are exceptions. I live in a small town south of Provo, Utah. Bradley works at BYU. Although we are poster-children for the suburban lifestyle, we actually live in a fairly walkable area. Less than 50 yards away is the bus stop that takes Bradley directly to BYU campus. Within roughly ten blocks is our doctors, our dentists, City Hall, the library, the park (actually, three parks), the church, the elementary school, our bank, several restuarants, a grocery store, two hardware stores, the dollar store...you get the idea. And we live in a pleasant, residential area, where I'm not afraid to let my kids play outside in the front yard.

We still own a car, however. (A van, to be precise. Which spends 70% of the week not going anywhere.) We cannot easily get to Gee's spina bifida clinic up at Primary Children's Hospital on the bus, nor to visit family up and down the Wasatch Front. It is more expensive and cumbersome to rent a van for family trips, and it is impossible to get up to the canyons to hike and play in the great outdoors without a car And, for the day-to-day stuff, although I have the awesomest stroller:
I still have four kids five and under, two of whom don't walk. Grocery shopping for a family of six (with three still in diapers, ugh!) is not a task for the faint of heart. And definately not for the carless.