Suburban Life Not So Cheap After All

For years, homebuyers have been drawn to Toronto's suburban frontier by the promise of lower housing costs or the idea of "getting more house for your money". But a new study by the Neptis Foundation, a regional planning and transportation think-tank, suggests that the lower costs of living in the suburbs are largely illusory. The study found that the increased costs of commuting long distances as well as maintaining a larger house on a larger lot tend to eat up any initial savings on the price of a suburban home. In fact, when all factors are considered the annual cost of living in a home in the suburbs appears to be considerably greater than living in a comparable home in the central city. Furthermore, the study did not account for non-monetary costs such as the time lost while caught in traffic or the social and environmental costs of sprawl development and traffic congestion.