Anyone siting a new office – or homes for people working in that office – will be interested in research conducted by FiveThirtyEight. Bialik reports that the group probed, via data obtained from StreetEasy, a real estate listing service, how much people are “willing to pay to shave a minute off [their] commute. For New Yorkers, the answer appears to be around $56 per month. That’s how much more New Yorkers pay in rent, on average, for a one-bedroom apartment that’s a minute closer by subway to Manhattan’s main business districts…The higher rents show how much New Yorkers are willing to pay for convenience – and how those who can’t afford to live close to jobs are getting pushed to the edges of the city and must spend more of their time on the subway, leaving less time for leisure and sleep.”
In addition, “Places with short commutes are also often places with other desirable characteristics: restaurants, nightlife and convenience, both in terms of getting to other places in and around the city and of getting people from other parts of the city to come to your neighborhood.” Although this research was conducted in the New York City area, its basic finding, that people value convenience, is valid everywhere.
Carl Bialik. 2016. “New Yorkers Will Pay $56 a Month to Trim a Minute Off Their Commute.” http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/new-yorkers-will-pay-56-a-month-to-trim-a-minute-off-their-commute/
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.