Housing and transport expenditure: Socio-spatial indicators of affordability in Auckland

• Housing affordability measures tend to disregard transportation costs.
• Spatial analysis of housing and transport affordability in Auckland is conducted.
• Inclusion of commuting costs produce markedly different patterns of affordability.
• Housing in outlying areas is shown to be relatively less affordable.

Traditional measures of housing affordability are expressed solely as a function of housing cost and income. This one-dimensional view of affordability ignores transportation costs, which represent a sizable proportion of household expenditure. Conventional measures are problematic due to the extent to which housing location influences transportation costs. Consequently, narrowly construed definitions of housing affordability are misleading indicators of housing stress. This study quantitatively examines intra-metropolitan combined housing and transport affordability in Auckland, New Zealand. The research utilises disaggregate zonal data to develop comprehensive indicators of commuting costs. These indicators are applied to give an integrated affordability index for each statistical area unit within Auckland City. The results suggest that once commuting costs are incorporated into measures, a very different pattern of affordability emerges.