Commuting costs are housing costs

There’s an interesting story in the Herald about research on the combined cost of commuting and housing in Auckland.

“If you just look at housing costs alone, outlying areas appear really affordable and it initially seems to make sense to say, hey, let’s open up greenfield sites on the urban periphery and develop here,” Mr Mattingly said. “But when you include these broader costs, they are not as affordable as they seem.”

This is the sort of conclusion I like to see, as a non-driver, so I looked at the research paper (there wasn’t a link, but the Herald did give the researchers’ names and journal name). I was disappointed that the impact of commuting costs wasn’t higher, at least until you got out to Pukekohe or Warkworth.

Since the journal is published by a company known for its dedication to preventing knowledge being disseminated for free, I won’t show any whole maps, but here are the central chunks of the cost maps with and without commuting costs. Or perhaps the other way around.