A really interesting article in the New York Times recently by Tara Siegel Bernard asking the question whether, contrary to popular perception, it’s actually cheaper to live in the city than in the suburbs.

The answer, of course, is that it is MUCH more expensive to live in the city.  There. Now you save a few minutes of your life, and you don’t have to go read the article.

But if you have some time, go check it out:

Here’s what we found: a suburban lifestyle costs about 18 percent more than living in the city. Even a house in the suburbs with a price tag substantially lower than an urban apartment will, on a monthly basis, often cost more to keep running. And then there’s the higher cost of commuting from the suburbs, or the expense of buying a car (or two) and paying the insurance.

The Times says the city is actually cheaper for a family making about $175,000 a year, mostly because people in the suburbs have two significant additional costs: property taxes and cars.  The only caveat was that if the couple is going to put their kids in private school in the city, then the suburbs start to become more competitive.

Now, a couple of things about that.  I absolutely agree with the point that sometimes people miscalculate the additional costs of living in the suburbs from needing a car, or multiple cars, and having to pay property taxes.  I’m not so sure that the average family taking a lot of cabs every month doesn’t narrow that gap, but I will absolutely agree that property taxes in the city are ridiculously low.  My brownstone in the city had four units, which altogether were probably worth about $7-8 million, and the property taxes on the building were about $25,000. In Westchester, you pay property taxes like that for a $1M house.  No question that’s an issue.  Property taxes are horrible.

But I think that the analysis in the article missed a couple of things.  First, the article cheats a little, because the theoretical couple in question ends up buying a median priced ($675,000) home in Park Slope.  I know that the people in Brooklyn might hunt me down and pelt me with artisanal cheeses, but let’s be honest — Park Slope is itself a suburb.

(Sounds of a fine handmade gouda hitting flesh).

Seriously?  We’re going to try to compare living in the city versus living in the suburbs, and the Times’s idea of “living in the city” is Park Slope?  Why not go out to Bay Ridge?  Or Flushing?  I’ll bet it’s even cheaper there. Sheesh.

Second, on the other side of the equation, I would have liked to see the Times look at some homes other than in South Orange, New Jersey, where the median price for a four bedroom home is apparently about $600,000.  For one thing, that’s a lot higher than the median price in a lot of the other suburbs of Manhattan.  For another, if the basic gist of the article is to make side-by-side comparisons, I’m not so sure that a two-bedroom, one-bath coop in Park Slope is the analogue to a four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath house anywhere.  If you have two kids, that two-bedroom is going to be a wee cramped.  Forget it if you have three. You’ll have all that extra expense of defending yourself in court when you kill one of them, or your wife, or a hapless cabbie in a fit of parental rage.

So if you were to look at, say, a 3 bedroom coop or condo in Manhattan, a REAL city (ducking a handmade wheel of brie), against a four-bedroom home in some other counties ringing Manhattan, you’d have a much bigger spread.

Third, and most importantly, I don’t see anything in the Times’s analysis of the increased cost of everyday living in the city compared to the suburbs.  That’s the real savings that you get for foregoing all the wonderful things that the city has to offer.  Everything is cheaper. Everything. Your food, your drinks, your dry cleaning, your toilet paper.  Everything.  I would think that this would add up.

Listen, I love the city. I lived in the city for 17 years. I miss it, and would still live there if: (1) I didn’t actually work outside the city (which makes me different from most people making this decision), and (2) I wasn’t looking to raise a family and realizing that I really wanted the extra space.  I recognize all the drawbacks of living in the suburbs — hell, this blog is basically one long post about the drawbacks of living in the suburbs — but increased expenses are not one of them.