A car is often essential in the US but while owning a vehicle is better than not for life satisfaction, a study has found, having to drive too much sends happiness plummeting
You can’t really build affordable and convenient car-dependent style housing (think single-family suburbs) for everyone because they take too much space. So you’ll always end up with the situation where well-located houses are outrageously expensive and you get cheaper by buying something much further out. Essentially people are willing to pay a premium to no have to drive for a long time to get anywhere.
The only reason why conveniently-located suburbs were ever affordable (think 50s or 60s) is because most people back then didn’t have a car yet, so the demand wasn’t saturated.
The two are closely connected.
You can’t really build affordable and convenient car-dependent style housing (think single-family suburbs) for everyone because they take too much space. So you’ll always end up with the situation where well-located houses are outrageously expensive and you get cheaper by buying something much further out. Essentially people are willing to pay a premium to no have to drive for a long time to get anywhere.
The only reason why conveniently-located suburbs were ever affordable (think 50s or 60s) is because most people back then didn’t have a car yet, so the demand wasn’t saturated.