Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/14/third-place.html
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Certainly makes intuitive sense.
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Hrm.
“The report found, for example, that apartments in San Francisco that previously had a 20% premium because of their vicinity to public transportation are down by about 5% since Uber’s launch.”
It occurs to me that 15% of rent in San Francisco is probably now enough to pay for a car ride to or from work every day now… and it wasn’t always so… but as much because the rent is too damned high, as because the cars are so much cheaper.
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“… and that is, generally, a good thing”
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Also the person renting such an apartment is, necessarily, higher income now than in the past, and more likely to pay for such a luxury.
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A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transport — paraphrased from Enrique Penalosa, former Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia.
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math checks out.
Average SF rent: $3400 (source)
15% = $510
$510 / (20 working days * 2 commutes per day) = $12.75 allowance per trip
Or, alternatively, the definitely-not-a-cab-companies’ monthly passes are well within that range: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Lyft-tests-all-you-can-ride-monthly-subscriptions-12758919.php
Although weirdly, as one of my coworkers here in the SF Bay Area noted, you pretty much have to be rich to have access to workable public transit here.
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Boo fucking hoo.
Realtors belong to a class of people that more often than not I do not like. Similar in sleaziness to Car salesmen and Recruiters.
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Good. That means people who need transit to survive and can’t afford to waste money on cabs (ie, most people) will be slightly more able to find a place to live that’s convenient to transit.
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I’m not sure what the point is, the transportation premium is often used against transit proponents as part of the “light rail leads to gentrification” argument. It seems like a good thing that poor people can support improved transit options without worrying about being kicked out of their homes, it’s not like they can afford Uber on a regular basis…
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That’s where we’ve arrived as a society. It’s the case in just about any big desirable North American city with decent public transit. As Pratchett put it in Sam Vimes’s famous “Boots” theory of socioeconomic unfairness: “The reason that the rich were so rich […] was because they managed to spend less money.”
I can’t really be bothered to cry along with luxury real estate developers about this situation and if affluent people are willing to double the cost of their daily commutes for only a slight benefit that’s their business. The problem I have with the situation is that it will increase traffic congestion in cities and further cement the idea of the gig economy as one of the dwindling options for those who can’t afford to live in cities.
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erode the premium homebuyers pay for good public transit links
First you have to have good public transit links in order to erode them.
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There was an interesting paper a couple years back looking at subway commute times and the value of an one-minute reduction on rental prices (turns out a minute was worth $56). At the time they only looked at subway commuters, so it would be nice to see how the numbers change if you factor in Uber et al.
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Breaking News: Realtor Discovers that Markets Change
Two ways this goes:
- He’ll adapt.
- He’ll try to buy some legislation that protects his little slice of the market.
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The premium could also be used to show how much people value good public transit and that it should therefore be extended into more areas.If everyone has public transit it can’t lead to gentrification.
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So far, anecdotal evidence… but hey, Realtors vs Uber - what’s not to like?
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Do they want some cheese with that whine?
The world changes, deal with it. Imagine how all the horse stables felt about people switching to cars.
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Well, it could do that, if the premium didn’t immediately erode in the presence of other options that don’t involve sharing space with poor people. The benefits of public transit go far beyond real estate values, and the case can be made in any number of ways besides inference from real estate prices.
