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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

About 30% of households in San Francisco do not own cars.[1] That's not the majority "by far." NYC is the only city in the US where the majority of households do not own a car (~56%). But "by far" still only really applies to Manhattan.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_most_...

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To be fair, of those in the outer boroughs of NY that do have a car, (anecdotally) they don't commute with it. From what I've seen, the car is for trips out of the city or occasionally getting something big home, or used as part of their job (Taxi, Contractor truck/van, etc).

In the most dense part of NYC, Manhattan, 73% of people don't have access to a car[1], which supports the idea that with more density comes less car dependence/ownership.

[1] https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/15_5YR/S...

But this is true only if there's enough public infrastructure to support that kind of living.

I'm in the East Village and I have these subways in a 10 min walk radius:

4|5|6|N|Q|R|B|D|F|M|L

I can make a no transfer trip to anywhere in Manhattan and most parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

If I lived in a part of Manhattan or NYC that didn't have these levels of access, I'd be very tempted to get a car.

I lived on a block just about the furthest from any subway in manhattan: 81st and York[0]. A car never crossed my mind.

http://iquantny.tumblr.com/post/99544282749/found-the-manhat...

Having a car and using a car two different things. I live in a city and own a car, but bike almost everywhere I go.

You're right. I mixed up my stats. Most of the new households come in these cities without owning a car.

Sources: http://sf.streetsblog.org/2014/08/15/car-free-households-are... https://ggwash.org/view/35905/88-of-new-dc-households-are-ca... http://www.betterinstitutions.com/blog/2013/07/almost-all-of...

That doesn't surprise me much. A disproportionate percentage of new grads moving to Cambridge or Boston to live probably have a job there. Someone working out at 495 would maybe prefer to live in the city but they'd just as soon not have an hour commute each way every day.

Furthermore, recent students are used to dealing with not having cars in many cases--even if it can be inconvenient at times. In addition, Zipcar and Uber/Lyft/etc. absolutely make a difference at the margins if you don't need a car on a day-to-day basis.

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