Scott points out that Decatur was featured on CNN’s Issue #1 this afternoon in a segment about the real costs associated with living farther outside of a metropolitan area. In it, Decatur residents’ transportation costs are compared to those of distant Dacula.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the video, just the transcript. And its a little long, so I’ll post it in full in the continuation. Scott found the video!

Good press for our little city! Plus it continues to show that Decatur is on the right side of a long term trend in sustainable living.

Thanks Scott!

Also, the high cost of gas is exploding family budgets across the country. And our next guest says where you live could make a big difference in how much it’s impacting you.

John Norquist is the president of the Congress for New Urbanism. He’s joining us now from Chicago.

John, great to see you.

JOHN NORQUIST, PRESIDENT, CONGRESS FOR THE NEW URBANISM: Hi, Gerri. Great to be with you.

WILLIS: Now I know everybody considers, location, location, location when they buy a house. But you say you need to think about it in a different way. How so?

NORQUIST: Well, the whole real estate market is repricing itself based on location efficiency. With gas at about $4.50 a gallon, people are noticing that the longer commutes are now degrading the value of places where there’s long commutes. And where it’s more convenient, there’s that premium.

And it’s been true for sometime. About two or three years ago this trend started to show up where the preference for either cities or older suburbs where the location is more efficient.

WILLIS: All right. Well, I want to show our viewers an example of what’s going on here. We’re going to tell you a tale of two suburbs, really. Two suburbs of Atlanta, Decatur and Dacula. One is about six miles from Atlanta. The other is about 38 miles from Atlanta. You can see on the map here where they’re all located. Obviously, Decatur much closer in.

What did you find here, John? What’s the story here? Take a look at these numbers. Miles traveled, very different here. Transportation costs for a month, whoa, a very big difference, right?

NORQUIST: Right. And it’s even gotten bigger since this calculation was done because the gas prices continue to go up. You save a lot of money on transportation if you live in Decatur as opposed to Dacula. And the housing market’s now repricing itself to reflect that. There’s a consumer preference to live where you can save money on transportation.

So for investors, for the big real estate investors, they’re starting to look at sprawl as the number one risk factor for the average person. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t have this information too. If you want to look at location efficiency, you want to look at the commute you’re going to have and the money you’re going to spend on gas and calculate that in to the house price that you pay.

WILLIS: I think that makes all the sense in the world. You actually have a tool to help folks do that. It’s called the Housing and Transportation Affordability Index, htaindex.com. We wanted to show our viewers an example of this. We’re going to use Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill. The research triangle in North Carolina, as an example here, just to give people an idea of what all this looks like.

If you look at housing costs, for example, they should be about 30 percent of your costs. And if you look at this map, you’ll see the yellow equals the affordable areas when you talk about housing costs. Now, let’s layer on transportation costs on top of that. You’ll see things become a whole lot less affordable and we’re assuming that transportation costs should be 48 percent of your monthly budget or less.

Now, John, talk to me a little bit about the trend here. You can see the inner city, obviously, the most affordable. But, boy, you start getting outside that inner ring and, whoo, the prices jump.

NORQUIST: Yes. I mean you might get a lower price on a house, but then you have to factor in what it’s going to cost you to drive. And your viewers can go to cnu.org/locationefficiency and make their own calculation for wherever they live. And ask themselves this question. You know, what is the real value of the place I’m about to invest. For most people, the house is the biggest investment they make. And so you want to do that carefully and you want to look at this. And with gas prices going way up, it’s more important to do it than ever.

WILLIS: Well, John, we appreciate your help today. Thanks for your time.

NORQUIST: My pleasure.