The irony, at least here in Atlanta, is that crappy car-only suburbs have become considerably more affordable than the re-gentrifying inner city. For what I'm paying here in Midtown, I could get myself a palace 30 minutes out, if I wanted to live the way I described in my article.
It's true in most places now. The suburbs are getting poorer as cities are now too difficult to build in and inner suburbs won't allow density, so the poor must go out as gentrification happens. The problem is transportation costs are very high in car centric areas vs. in cities so the poor get even fewer job opportunities.
We could easily solve this by removing the 1950s zoning laws as the poor would not move far, housing prices would be lower, and more walkable development would occur.
