Quote:
Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary
My brother-in-law once simply opened his hood to check his oil level and the landlord pulled up like a swat team thinking he was working on his car.
If I had to live in a place like that I would seriously consider not owning a car. Bus service is hardly existant here except for the ski areas. But in places where that kind of thing is more prevalent so are bus routes. At $100 per month per adult that can be a lot cheaper than driving a car.
The main factor I think is income. If I made $10,000 per month, owning a car would be a no-brainer. When you're limited on what you can spend you have to direct it to what makes the most sense. A $2,000 apartment in a city with rules against owning an older vehicle would definitely mean no car for me unless there were better paying work there.
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Portland has the best public transportation of anyplace I've lived. Even then it would take me 2 hours to take transit to work when driving is 35 minutes today and was 55 minutes pre-pandemic. (I'm about a mile from the train station on each end of my commute) So yes, it is technically possible to live without a car but it makes your life much more stressful. Transit works great for going downtown for a game, show, or dinner but doesn't work well at all for going across town.
There are no rules against owning an old vehicle - you just can't work on vehicles in an apartment garage or parking lot. Doesn't matter if the vehicle is new or old. Which means maintaining an old car gets expensive. Very similar to the thread on JDM engines and why the average Japanese car gets taken out of service at 14 years old.
Yes, cities generally have better job prospects than rural areas - that is why people move to the city. A better job is why my wife and I have made every move.