The apartments right by the train stations are artificially expensive. They're designed to take advantage of the fact that white commuters don't want to risk living in a building with low income minorities. The surrounding housing is half the price, and the area is quite safe.

Nearly all of the Westchester suburbs are extremely walkable. All of the essential stuff is on the train line. The wife and I would load up the baby and take the train to Portchester, where there was a Costco, Marshalls, etc. I did have a car, which I drove maybe once a month (the upscale mall in White Plains was nowhere near public transit).

A 35 minute commute is not bad at all. Lots of rich people all over the country have hour+ commutes from the suburbs. Heck, my commute from New Rochelle was a lot more enjoyable (straight shot into GCT) than my commute from the UWS (transfer at Times Square, ugh). You can't point to 35 minute commutes as a reason to make space for low-income housing in the city proper.

I haven't been back there recently enough to know if MN is 24 hours but I recall travel being limited to certain times and this is especially true on the LIRR. Especially late at night, the train is filled with annoying rowdy drunks. That's more than enough reason for me not to want to live out there. It's like being deprived of all of the social benefits of living in/around NYC.

I mean, I totally get what you're saying, but I didn't find much benefit to living out there. I don't have a family though.

Metro North is not 24 hours, but it's only closed for 3 hours between 2:30 am and 5:30 am. And trains from NR run every 15 minutes at rush hour. The Metro North has way fewer sketchy people on average than the Subway. Lots of bankers heading back to Greenwich.

In any case, you're arguing a different point now. Housing prices in many Westchester towns are very reasonable and commutes are too. No reason for rent control to allow low-income people to live in the city proper.

It definitely seems like the MN-lines have the nicer folks. late night LIRR rides are 10x worse than any subway line.

Barring handicaps, I think a 15-30 minute walk is reasonable for most people, particularly the sort of people who might be looking to live in a car-lite city. 30 minutes at a leisurely pace is only 2 miles, I do that twice a day and I live and work in the same city (I also have a car, but clogging the streets and the air with it every day just to go 2 miles seems practically criminal to me). For somebody living outside the city, that is pretty good.

Now granted, their commute is going to be longer since that 15-30 minutes is in addition to the rest of their commute, not the entirety of it, but you can't live outside the city you are working in and expect snappy commutes.

What if you're over 40? Lower income often means poor health. Let's try not to approach this problem from our typically young working healthy professional perspective. Most of us are making more money than the people we're really talking about here.

Also, can you really live in these areas and shop without a car? I find the answer to that question to rarely be yes.

People over 40 are perfectly capable of using their legs. If they used them more often, instead of hopping in the car every time they needed to go a mile or two, maybe they would remain healthy longer. Cities typically have transportation programs meant for the elderly and disabled, if other public transit is unable to service them.

I shop with my car maybe once a month, tops, and that is mostly just because I like to buy dozens of liters of seltzer water.