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walkitoutHere's the post that has done me in:
http://seattlebubble.com/blog/2008/07/07/beating-a-dead-horse-gas-prices/
This is the third time the author of this blog has hammered on some article that describes people who _are in fact_ moving from a long commute to a short commute.
Here's the article:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008036634_housegas07.html
It's actually a pretty good article about a _working couple_ who lived together in _Kirkland_ but both worked in Seattle, and who decided to buy a townhome in the Roosevelt neighborhood. Again, many of my readers are in/from Seattle and thus familiar with it -- but others are not. Roosevelt, FWIW, is an _awesome_ neighborhood a little bit north of the U-District with good access to freeways, great bus service, mostly single-family homes switching over to multi-family (think Ballard a few years ago), with decent schools, a Whole Paycheck as well as more moderately priced groceries, a smattering of restaurants, etc.
What it is not is on Capitol Hill. I don't know _why_ the author of Seattle Bubble concludes the couple is buying on or around Capitol Hill (which would be prohibitively expensive even taking a huge hit to the lifestyle in terms of # bedrooms/square footage, etc.). The article clearly states Roosevelt, altho I suppose you actually have to skim down to the bottom to discover this.
A very, very superficial check at real estate prices confirmed what I suspected: Kirkland is _more_ expensive than Roosevelt, unless it's a wash. This would be because of historical perceptions of school quality (Seattle Public had a very, very nasty rep there for a while) that, if they were true, aren't any more.
So. A couple of people decide to move closer to their jobs, in a neighborhood with great services, which will probably be slightly cheaper than where they were commuting from. And the idiot who lives in Kenmore thinks that this won't "pencil out". [ETA: It was uncalled, petty, small-minded and mean of me to refer to The Tim from Seattle Bubble in this manner. I apologize. He responded quite handsomely in the first comment below.]
Yeah. I'll go waste my spare time reading the comments at Calculated Risk, instead. If I need Seattle real estate info, I can always read Rain City. I added my corrections in a comment; I'll check back one more time to see if this had _any_ impact on the author. Otherwise, I'm afraid he's just a wack job whose particular hangup is no longer all that unique (since everyone by now seems on board with the idea that real estate in and around Seattle has crested).
http://seattlebubble.com/blog/2008/07/07/beating-a-dead-horse-gas-prices/
This is the third time the author of this blog has hammered on some article that describes people who _are in fact_ moving from a long commute to a short commute.
Here's the article:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008036634_housegas07.html
It's actually a pretty good article about a _working couple_ who lived together in _Kirkland_ but both worked in Seattle, and who decided to buy a townhome in the Roosevelt neighborhood. Again, many of my readers are in/from Seattle and thus familiar with it -- but others are not. Roosevelt, FWIW, is an _awesome_ neighborhood a little bit north of the U-District with good access to freeways, great bus service, mostly single-family homes switching over to multi-family (think Ballard a few years ago), with decent schools, a Whole Paycheck as well as more moderately priced groceries, a smattering of restaurants, etc.
What it is not is on Capitol Hill. I don't know _why_ the author of Seattle Bubble concludes the couple is buying on or around Capitol Hill (which would be prohibitively expensive even taking a huge hit to the lifestyle in terms of # bedrooms/square footage, etc.). The article clearly states Roosevelt, altho I suppose you actually have to skim down to the bottom to discover this.
A very, very superficial check at real estate prices confirmed what I suspected: Kirkland is _more_ expensive than Roosevelt, unless it's a wash. This would be because of historical perceptions of school quality (Seattle Public had a very, very nasty rep there for a while) that, if they were true, aren't any more.
So. A couple of people decide to move closer to their jobs, in a neighborhood with great services, which will probably be slightly cheaper than where they were commuting from. And the idiot who lives in Kenmore thinks that this won't "pencil out". [ETA: It was uncalled, petty, small-minded and mean of me to refer to The Tim from Seattle Bubble in this manner. I apologize. He responded quite handsomely in the first comment below.]
Yeah. I'll go waste my spare time reading the comments at Calculated Risk, instead. If I need Seattle real estate info, I can always read Rain City. I added my corrections in a comment; I'll check back one more time to see if this had _any_ impact on the author. Otherwise, I'm afraid he's just a wack job whose particular hangup is no longer all that unique (since everyone by now seems on board with the idea that real estate in and around Seattle has crested).
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Re: The Tim here
Date: 2008-07-08 04:45 am (UTC)also, carpooling across the water is very easy to arrange, so gas wouldn't necessarily be as high as your estimates. i think in many respects, it's not always 'cheaper' in seattle city limits by default.
(i haz a livejournal, but i am here from seattlebubble)
Re: The Tim here
Date: 2008-07-08 05:04 am (UTC)The parking vs bus fare (pay both, either or neither) is pretty variable; hard to calculate that one. The article said one of the guys has a 1996 Camry, so he's presumably getting closer to 30 mpg than 20 mpg, and he's filling what appears to be a 15 or so gallon tank three times a month. The article quotes him saying, "We sit in traffic forever" but it is not clear whether they sit in the car together with each other, with other carpoolers, etc. In any event, one of the two has a monthly gas cost of $210, closer to The Tim's estimate than mine in dollars -- but implying closer to mine in miles. Nice washout!
The fact that one is described as a student and employee of SCCC implies probably no one is paying for their parking or buying them a bus pass. The other is described as a student; ditto.
I don't think I would go so far as to say it's always cheaper to live within the city limits than without, either for Seattle or elsewhere; as numerous people noted over on SeattleBubble, not all jobs are in the city. I do think that a relatively long-term trend (suburbs clearly cheaper, maybe not in time, but in money) has (started to) reverse recently.