Alaska posts from the Daily Score blog - Sightline Daily

Huge Alaska Property Victory

Eric de Place — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:41:18

As I've written before, voters in Alaska's Mat-Su Borough are confronted with 2007's only regulatory takings ballot initiative. Or rather, they were.

The initiative, Proposition 1, was a near carbon copy of Oregon's Measure 37 and the raft of 2006 initiatives. It would have led to a development free-for-all. And I'm pleased to report that on Tuesday, voters handed out a stunning victory to sensible planning and public policy: the ballot measure was defeated by 71 to 29 percent.

The Mat-Su election comes on the heels of last year's spate of so-called "property rights" measures. You remember? The ones that Western voters overwhelming shot down? (One did pass in Arizona, mostly because the ballot in that state was crowded and much the natural opposition was preoccupied with other issues.) The most surprising result at the time was conservative Idaho which delivered the most crushing defeat to a takings measure, trouncing it 76 to 24.

In a way, it's not surprising that the public keeps rejecting these initiatives. Consider how the sponsor of the Mat-Su ballot measure described the outcome to the press: he called the vote "a stunning victory for socialism."

Yikes.

This is not the sentiment of a guy who believes in community, or even the basic tenets of local democracy. It's the ranting of an ideology that is wildly out of step with American life.

In light of the Mat-Su vote, it's becoming abundantly clear that no matter what a handful of "property rights" activists like to believe, Americans really and truly like having a say in their communities. It's not that local government is perfect, or that zoning is uncontroversial, or that everyone always gets what that want. It's just this: Americans believe in democracy.

The United States of Climate Change (Again)

Eric de Place — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:47:53

I'm happy to say that I have not yet finished annoying readers of this blog with my climate change maps. Because now they look professional thanks to awesome designer Laurie Kellogg.

Each map shows places with equivalent greenhouse gas emissions.

Behold, a glimpse of a straightforward state-to-country version:

Here are bigger and better versions.

And behold again, a peek at a more conceptual map showing groups states compared to large countries (and continent) emitters:

Bigger and better versions here.

Half Baked Alaska

Eric de Place — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:15:31

When in comes to property rights, all eyes are on Oregon as voters there consider trimming back Measure 37. But in some ways, Oregon isn't the most interesting game in town. That honor may belong to Alaska, where voters in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough will weigh 2007's only regulatory takings ballot initiative in the form of Proposition 1.

While the "Mat-Su" isn't known much outside of Alaska, it will be an interesting laboratory for examining the next round of "property rights" arguments. It's likely that activists will try to improve their rhetoric and strategies after their not-terribly-successful outing to the polls in 2006.

I'll have more to say on Proposition 1 in the coming months, but in the meantime you can find good newspaper coverage here and here.

And here the local paper, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersmen, inveighs against the measure in an editorial that appears to have been truncated on the web. Still, I thought there was some apt language, so I'll close with an excerpt:

In this case, one's rights can make a wrong for all. Hogtying the borough, a city or any special district in how it makes public land use policy will result in a chaotic, expensive system no agency could possibly afford.

Oh, I almost forgot: I do have one big criticism of the editorial's language. Prop 1 isn't really a threat to what an "agency" can afford; it's a threat to what the public -- you know, citizens and taxpayers -- can afford.

Nation-States of Climate Change Redux

Eric de Place — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 13:14:08

(*Update: Newer and better versions of these maps are here and here.)

Because I love maps so much that I just can't stop making them.

This version is a bit a more conceptual than the previous map. But even though it's a bit weirder, but I actually like it more because it really drives home the outsize significance of US climate policy.

Each state, or cluster of states, is labelled with a country or continent that has equivalent greenhouse gas emissions.

See the full US map here.

The 291 million in Americans (in 2004) is the greenhouse gas equivalent of the more than 3 billion residents of other countries listed on the map.

The detailed population comparison is below the jump...

Number of people, 2003 (in millions)

Africa	853.2	42.1	AR + DC + KY + MD+ MO + NC + TN + VA + WV
Argentina	38.7	7.5	AZ + NM
Brazil	182.0	9.4	IA + MN + ND + SD
France	60.2	35.5	CA
Germany	82.4	51.7	NJ + NY + OH + PA
India	1,049.7	33.0	LA + MS+ OK + TX
Indonesia	234.9	15.5	MI + WI
Ireland	3.9	3.5	CT
Israel	6.1	0.5	WY
Italy	58.0	18.8	IL + IN
Jordan	5.5	0.8	DE
Malaysia	23.1	10.7	MA + ME + NH + RI + VT
Morocco	31.7	0.9	MT
Pakistan	156.1	4.6	NV + UT
Philippines	84.6	6.1	WA
Sweden	9.0	4.9	ID + OR
Thailand	63.3	9.0	CO + KS + NE
UK	60.1	34.4	AL + GA + FL + SC
Norway	4.6	0.6	AK
Ecuador	13.1	1.2	HI
Total	3,020	291	Total

The full map for the US is here.

The methodology is the same as the last time around. All data are from the US Department of Energy. Ghg data are an average of the period from 2001 to 2003; population data are for 2003. Emissions are from energy use only and they do not include carbon sinks. Countries are considered "equivalent" if their total emissions are within 10 percent of a state's emissions. Obviously, there a million ways to slice these comparisons since many states and countries have similar levels of emissions.

The Nation States of Climate Change

Eric de Place — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:59:46

*Update: Newer and better versions of these maps are here.

Ever wondered if your state's climate policy really makes a difference in the big global scheme of things? If so, here's a little map I made.

For each state, the map shows a nation with equivalent greenhouse gas emissions from energy.

The full US version is here.

When I've shown drafts to people, almost everyone wants to compare populations. The Western states population comparison is after the jump. The full data are here (xls).

Number of people (in millions), 2003

Arizona	5.6	Nigeria	122.8
California	35.5	Mexico	103.7
Colorado	4.5	Cuba + Columbia	52.9
Idaho	1.4	Jordan	5.5
Montana	0.9	Morocco	31.7
Nevada	2.2	Norway	4.6
New Mexico	1.9	Finland	5.2
Oregon	3.6	Ireland	3.9
Utah	2.4	North Korea	22.5
Washington	6.1	Iraq	24.7
Wyoming	0.5	Vietnam	81.8
Total	65	Total	459

I find the full US map a bit overwhelming. Even more so when I realize that the 2003 population of the US -- less than 300 million -- has the same climate impact as the more than 1.5 billion people represented by the other countries listed on the map.

And now, a word about my methodology. All data are from the US Department of Energy. Ghg data are an average of the period from 2001 to 2003; population data are for 2003. Emissions are from energy use only and they do not include carbon sinks. Countries are considered "equivalent" if their total emissions are within 10 percent of a state's emissions. Obviously, there a million ways to slice these comparisons since many states and countries have similar levels of emissions.

More information:

Can We Catch California?

Justin Brant — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:39:49

Meet Justin our new research intern. He recently moved to Capitol Hill, in Seattle, from Corvallis, Oregon, where he got a Master’s Degree studying the effects of climate change on forest productivity, and where he tried to spend as much time outdoors as possible.

There has already been a mess of state climate legislation passed in Cascadia during 2007. But who has the time to make sense of all those targets, standards, and dates? (Who’s promising 10% below 1990 levels by 2020? How does Idaho compare to California? And wasn’t there some kind of renewable energy standard?) Well never fear, because I’ve sorted it all out in this nifty table. You can see how your state (or province) stacks up.

Full version here.

The upshot is that Cascadian lawmakers are trying to follow California’s lead on regulating greenhouse gas emissions. In the 2007 legislative session, both Oregon and Washington passed statewide goals for reducing GHGs. It was a good first step to establish a framework, and the goals themselves are ambitious. But ultimately, they’re only that: goals. Unfortunately, they don’t include binding enforcement mechanisms. Only California did that, with its AB 32 bill.

In addition to setting goals, many states enacted more concrete legislation to reduce future GHG emissions. (Again, check out this nifty table.) British Columbia, California, Montana, and Washington all recently banned the building of new coal power plants unless a significant portion of GHG emissions can be permanently sequestered. In California and Washington, the bans even extend to electricity purchased from out-of-state.

These same states also mandated that a large portion of their energy portfolio be generated by renewable sources in the coming years. And they took the lead on incorporating renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel into gasoline. Both policies reduce GHG emissions, while creating jobs in the rapidly expanding renewable fuel and energy industries.

Especially intriguing are the incredibly ambitious goals laid out by BC Premier Gordon Campbell in his speech from the throne. In this speech Campbell laid out an exciting climate agenda, setting non-binding emissions reduction targets. BC recently joined with western states in establishing a regional carbon-trading scheme, and the provincial utility scrapped two coal-fired power plants in the works. Campbell picked up a lot of favorable press, but it remains to be seen if the Premiere will back up his boisterous talk with some actual legislation and legal mandates.

Some Cascadian governments are taking the lead nationally (and even internationally) to reduce GHG emissions. The next step may be getting Idaho, Alaska, and the federal governments of North America to start passing similarly aggressive laws.

Takings Whac-A-Mole: Alaska Edition

Eric de Place — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 12:56:43

Property rights activists are floating a new regulatory takings measure -- this time in Alaska.

A new ballot initiative is being proposed in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, an area north of Anchorage that is expected to experience rapid growth in the coming decades.

Why a "property rights" bill in "Mat-Su"? Tough to say. Property is so lightly regulated there that the borough's website prominently includes this explanation:

Zoning, Land Use and Building Regulations DO Exist in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Be advised that permits may be required.

That's right: may. Is there any legitimate need for regulatory takings measure here? Or is there something else going on?

Here's a theory.

(And, yes, this is just a theory.) In some ways it's not surprising that an intensely local ballot measure is being proposed in rural Alaska. It's precisely in keeping with the strategy that property rights radicals are rumored to follow. Having been stymied for years at the federal level, they resorted to Plan B, the states. But after an initial success in Oregon, the states have mostly handed them convincing, expensive, and ideologically damaging defeats. That leaves them with Plan C: local areas. Unfortunately for them, even in its earliest generations, Plan C has been a failure. But by retreating to the Mat-Su and other far-flung localities, they can hope to regain enough momentum to float these measures elsewhere.

At the moment, the activists' website claims that the measure is already qualified it for the October ballot. (That seems fishy since the ballot language seems to be worded for a vote in 2006.) Anyway, word has it that the language is still being hashed out, so it's not yet clear what Mat-Su voters can expect. The current version does not appear to be retroactive, unlike Oregon's Measure 37, and it includes the usual exemptions for public nuisances, federal laws, health and safety, and sex commerce. So while the proposed initiative is more reasonable than, say, Initiative 933 was in Washington, it will by its very nature hamstring local democracy and sow the seeds of an unwise development free-for-all.

Stay tuned.

(h/t to David Goldberg at Smart Growth America)

Every Day is Arbor Day

Eric de Place — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 14:28:29

Sure, it's one of the cornier lesser-known holidays, but I've always liked the idea of Arbor Day. I mean, it's a day to celebrate trees fer gosh sakes. And yesterday -- which I spent very pleasurably in my backyard with a raft of new plants -- I got to thinking about how we should spend more time celebrating growing things.

But it wasn't until I came to work this morning, planning to write a little Arbor Day post, that I learned that every day is Arbor Day. No, seriously: every day is Arbor Day.

If you live in Oregon, it's actually Arbor Week right now. But I (and everyone else in Washington), only get a single Arbor Day, and it's on April 11 this year. Idaho's is April 27, the same day as Montana's. California, I missed yours -- sorry. Your Arbor Week ended two weeks ago. Alaska, on the other hand, has to wait until May 21.

I'm guessing that the diversity of dates is related to the optimal tree planting time in local climates. But still, there's something amusing about the fact that Americans can celebrate Arbor Day starting in early November (Hawaii) and keep on going through Alaska's late spring date.

What's more, the holiday is celebrated everywhere from Barbados to Namibia to Yugoslavia. All -- naturally -- on different days or during different weeks, making it almost true that every day is Arbor Day.

The oddity, however, is Canada. Admittedly, I only spent a couple of minutes with Google, but I couldn't find much about Arbor Day in Canada. Ontario and Nova Scotia both have springtime dates, but I've got nothing for British Columbia. And nothing nationally. Is it because Canadians have already reached the next level of arborial conciousness?

Surely our green northern friends have a dedicated day of dendrology. Or something. Does it go by another name in Canada? Someone please help me out.

But even better than searching the web for Canadian holidays, get outdoors to soak up a little spring sunshine -- and then go plant something. You'll feel like a million bucks.

All the Climate News

Eric de Place — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:46:49

A new report questions whether the 358 US cities that pledged to meet Kyoto's targets will be successful. That's a fine question, but it's perhaps easy to misconstrue as an implicit criticism that the promises were meaningless.

There is every reason to think that the cities can meet the targets. (And, heck, the pledge is only 18 months old!) Portland, in fact, is already well on its way.

What the report should serve to highlight is that:

Reducing emissions requires a real plan with real teeth. (Seattle--the pledge's founding city--has a good start on this.)
Cities are working against tough odds. Most cities have very little control over their major sources of emissions--they're laced with state and federal roads, they have limited authority to tax or regulate consumer carbon, and they mostly don't have control over utilities, just to name a very few obstacles. City climate pledges are great, but they really need to be supported at the state and federal level to work properly.

Story in the Seattle P-I.

Below the jump, all the climate news you ever wanted. And then some...

** The Christian Science-Monitor has an astonishingly thorough article on the promises and perils of carbon offset programs. Definitely worth a read.

** Behind the NYT's paywall, Thomas Friedman drinks the coal-aid (like koolaid, get it?) and says that clean-burning coal, carbon sequestration, and a few other goodies will solve our environmental problems.

** And this just in: 2006 was the hottest year on record for the contiguous 48 states. No word yet (that I know of) about how 2006 stacked up globally. But scientists are already predicting that 2007 will top 1998 as the world's hottest ever. If so, this entire year will be just one more elaborate ploy in the awesomest hoax ever.

Update 1/11/07: I tweaked some of the language to make this post more readable -- and accurate.

Step It Up

Eric de Place — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 12:13:02

We normally don't do promotional posts on this blog, but this event is just too important to pass up.

April 14 will be a national day of action on climate change. Here's how instigator Bill McKibben describes it:

A few of us are trying to organize a nationwide day of hundreds and hundreds of rallies on April 14. We hope to have gatherings in every state, and in many of America's most iconic places: on the levees in New Orleans, on top of the melting glaciers on Mt. Rainier, even underwater on the endangered coral reefs off Key West.
We need rallies outside churches, along the tide lines in our coastal cities, in cornfields and forests and on statehouse steps.
Every group will be saying the same thing: Step it up, Congress! Enact immediate cuts in carbon emissions, and pledge an 80% reduction by 2050. No half measures, no easy compromises-the time has come to take the real actions that can stabilize our climate.

Details here.

Unemployment and the Minimum Wage

Eric de Place — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 15:55:24

Update 1/11/07: First-rate article on this subject by Timothy Egan in the New York Times. It's easy to see how he won the National Book Award.

***

There's been a lot of talk recently about the 110th Congress raising the federal minimum wage. One thing you hear a lot is that raising the minimum wage leads to higher unemployment. (Here's one risible example; and here it is filleted by David Goldstein.)

But is this canard actually true? I'm skeptical -- here's why.

First off, in deference the economists out there, I should mention that there has been any number of academic papers arguing this question. But one thing that I've never seen -- although I don't follow the debate closely -- is an argument with recourse to a fairly obvious natural experiment: What's happening in each of the 50 states?

In this corner, we have 21 states who share the federal minimum wage of $5.15, the lowest allowable wage. Among these states, some have the same wage as the feds, some no state minimum wage, and one, Kansas, has a lower wage. But federal law trumps.

In the other corner, there are 30 states (counting DC), that have a minimum wage higher than $5.15. There's not much uniformity among these states' wages and the details vary considerably. Still, we have something like a rough comparison between the stingy states and the generous states.

So what's the difference in the unemployment rates of stingy and generous states? Exceedingly little.

Of the 21 states with the lowest allowable wage, 9 of them (or 43 percent) have an unemployment rate higher than the national average of 5.1.
On the other hand, of the 30 states with higher minimum wages, just 10 (or 33 percent) have an unemployment rate above the national average.

For a more accurate picture, I calculated the aggregate unemployment rate for the stingy states versus the generous states (basically, using each state's labor force as a weighting factor for its unemployment rate). The difference is negligible.

The stingy states have a combined unemployment rate of 5.16 percent. Meanwhile, the generous states do almost imperceptibly better, with a combined unemployment rate of 5.07 percent.

Now, there may still be any number of reasons to believe one way or the other based on econometric models or academic theories. But the results on the ground suggest that the minimum wage does not make much of a difference to the unemployment rate. If anything, the state by state experience hints at the opposite conclusion. So maybe we can start retiring this old saw?

Note: All unemployment figures in this post refer to 2005, the last year for which we have complete data.

Update: Something about this post was bugging me on the bus ride home last night. I finally realized what it was: in late 2005 Hurricane Katrina pretty severely screwed up the economies of Louisiana and Mississippi, both of which are "stingy" states that provide only the lowest allowable wage.

So this morning I recalculated things without those two. Here's what I found:

7 of the 19 stingy states (37 percent) had an unemployment rate above the national average (as compared to 33 percent of the generous states).
The aggregate unemployment rate of stingy states falls to 4.98 percent (as compared to 5.07 percent for the generous states.

My reading of the numbers? Still too close to call -- and that's basically my point. Recent state by state data does not lend support to the oft-repeated claim that a higher minimum wage is tantamount to higher unemployment.

All The Children Are Above Average

Eric de Place — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 14:12:40

For the fourth year running, Minnesota is the healthiest state in the nation, at least according to the United Health Foundation's annual ranking. Casadian states were mostly better than average, but not by much:

Washington ranked 15th
Oregon and Idaho tied for 19th
Montana ranked 22nd with California close behind at 23rd.
Alaska ranked 31st, the only state partially in the Northwest that did worse than the national average.

Interestingly, Idaho posted the nation's second largest one-year health decline, a worsening that researchers attributed to rising obesity, increased rates of occupational injuries, and the number of reported "poor physical health days."

In happier news, Oregon, California, and Alaska were all in the top five states for health improvements over the period from 1990 to 2006.

Of course, there's lots more to tease apart with a study like this (see media coverage here and here). But to me the biggest questions are simply:

Given that Minnesota has been one of the top two healthiest states for the past 17 consecutive years, what is that state doing right?
And what can other states do to replicate Minnesota's success?

Any thoughts?

Northwest States Weigh In

Eric de Place — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 15:50:49

New report on obesity from Trust for America's Health. The US obesity rate has risen to 32 percent--an increase from just 15 percent in 1980. And 66 percent of adults are "overweight," a classification that also includes obesity.

But one curiosity gets overlooked: national rates of adult obesity and overweight have risen almost not at all since 2000. (That's not true for children.) See the charts on page 3 of this pdf for details.

What's going on? Why have the rates of adults who are overweight and obese hit a plateau at roughly two-thirds and one-third, respectively? Could we be doing something right that's helping to arrest adult weight gain--something that's not working equally well for children?

It's a mystery to me.

Meanwhile, US Cascadians are neither the fittest nor the fattest in the nation....

The 10 states with the highest obesity rates are all in the southeast. The trimmest states, on the other hand, are all in the northeast or west. Montana, part of which is in Cascadia, is the 7th slimmest state in the nation, and the leanest in the Northwest.

Here's how things break down in the Northwest:

	Adult	Adult
	Obesity	Overweight
Alaska	27.5	64.2
California	22.7	60.0
Idaho	24.5	61.4
Montana	21.3	57.5
Oregon	23.8	59.7
Washington	23.3	59.4

As we've pointed out, one of the best ways to address obesity, may be to address urban design. We can design places that encourage walking and make driving a choice, not a necessity. And by enlarging options for active transportation, especially walking, we may be able to keep from enlarging ourselves.

Even a small amount of daily physical activity--just a few minutes of walking--can be enough to stop the slow but steady accretion of weight that confounds Americans' best intentions to stay trim.

Cascadia after Roe

Alan Durning — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 21:06:25

With the balance of the US Supreme Court shifting steadily rightward, the odds are greater than ever that Roe v. Wade’s days are numbered. Roe, of course, is the epochal court case that established early abortions as private decisions protected from state intrusion by the US Constitution. Overturning Roe would not ban abortion. It would simply free state governments to regulate abortion as they saw fit.

What would happen in the Pacific Northwest?

Big change in Idaho, but much less elsewhere. Let’s take the parts of Cascadia in turn.

British Columbia, like all of Canada, is solidly pro-choice. It doesn’t even have a strong antiabortion movement.

Washington was the first US state to recognize that decisions about abortion should be made by women themselves. It adopted this policy by popular vote in 1970. Alaska followed soon thereafter, and Washington later enacted the principle of women’s freedom to make reproductive choices into state law.

California is equally stalwart on reproductive freedom. It’s canonized women’s choice in state law. What’s more, California--like the states of Alaska, Montana and Oregon--has written into its state constitutions guarantees of women’s right to choose that are stronger than the Supreme Court’s Roe interpretation of the US Constitution.

Idaho, on the other hand, is one of just a few states that have passed “trigger laws”—statutes that automatically ban abortion to the maximum extent permitted by the Supreme Court. If Roe goes, women in Idaho will no longer be able to get safe, legal abortions locally. (USA Today recently charted the likely outcome of overturning Roe.)

Just as prohibition didn’t end drinking, though, banning abortion won’t end abortion. It will simply drive abortion underground or across borders. As David Garrow documents extensively in his history of the US struggle for reproductive choice Liberty and Sexuality, travel for abortion was commonplace before Roe. So were hospital abortions to protect women’s life and health (and affluent women could often find hospitals willing to perform abortions on this basis). And so were clandestine abortions and self-administered abortions, as Garrow and the Guttmacher Institute (pdf) have both documented.

Nowadays, in the age of instant home pregnancy tests, affordable air travel, abortion pills, and Internet drug sales, the Idaho state government’s ability to stop women from ending unwanted pregnancies seems more limited than ever. Banning abortion in Idaho will probably reduce their number a little but at the cost of endangering the lives of many women, particularly those who cannot afford a trip to a pro-choice state.

A better option is open to Idaho—a way to achieve its goals of fewer abortions with no threat to women’s lives. It’s a strategy of prevention. The main determinant of abortion rates is the unplanned pregnancy rate, not the legal status of abortion. And Idaho can do many things to help its women prevent unplanned pregnancies: provide comprehensive sexuality education to all its young people in school; extend insurance coverage for contraceptives to all women in the state, through Medicaid for the poor and equal-prescription-coverage standards for others; provide universal access to emergency contraceptives; and target child sexual abuse and domestic violence as top tier law enforcement priorities statewide (because sexual violence is a precursor of a shameful share of unintended pregnancies). Finally, when Idaho women do choose abortion, the state could aim to ensure that they can get those abortions as early in pregnancy as possible, to minimize health risks and also the moral concerns of others in Idaho.

Monday's Tidepool: The "$3 a Gallon" Chorus

Kristin Kolb-Angelbeck — Mon, 08 May 2006 13:17:41

Tidepool's top story today offers a local angle on the headline dominating the news: "$3 a gallon." The Oregonian examines the current energy policy debate in Congress, highlighting the roles Republican Gordon Smith and Democrat Ron Wyden are playing in the U.S. Senate. There are plenty more "$3-a-gallon" articles today. The Los Angeles Times publishes a dispatch from Alaska, where oil greases government, industry and residents' pocketbooks. In the commentary section, a member of Portland Peak Oil argues that cities need to play a role in keeping consumer costs down by investing in housing density and mass transit.

I recommend a national article with some eye-opening findings on a regional trend: The New York Times discovers that California is full of horribly unaffordable places to live. In fact, Santa Rosa, California makes the no. 3 most-expensive spot on the list. (There's great map with the article, FYI). This is not just a California problem, of course. The Post-Intelligencer reports that home prices have hit record highs in Seattle. And let's not forget that Vancouver has the highest housing prices in Canada. Hmmm ... Kansas City is sounding more appealing to this Northwest transplant -- I know someone who bought a house in there (needing serious work) for $25,000. Of course, you can forget about density and mass transit in that city.

Perhaps some of our region's walkable and public-transportation-friendly cities, like Vancouver and Seattle, are more affordable than you might think if you don't have to drive or own a car.