The WaPo covers the study about housing and transprt costs that I linked to yesterday. There are two things to highlight here:
*Even though no one wants to live in an urban hellhole, quality urban hellholes are actually quite pricey.
*It seems that some people, perhaps because they have no experience with it, are unable to imagine life without one car per driving age member of the household, and do not factor in transport cost differences when considering where to live. So the expensive urban hellholes aren't actually as expensive as they think.
The main point is that cars are really expensive (payments, insurance, registration/fees/inspection/taxes, maintenance, gas), but it's an expense many people just assume is necessary.
Nothing in this post passes any judgment whatsoever on your location choice.
