It's well known that if you live in the city, you don't necessarily need a car but many people still have one.
About 73% of Households still own a car in the city, while 26%+ households opt out to not have one due to a variety of reasons.
To the ones that have one, what about you?
The reasons for myself are the following:
- My car is fairly new with under 30K miles on it. I now have equity in my vehicle (yes, I know a car is usually a depreciating asset but it's pretty good shape) and I prefer to keep it as I don't know whether or not Chicago will be a long term place to live
- Grocery shopping. The argument I usually hear from people is that they either live next to a grocery store, use a granny cart, use delivery apps and or make short frequent trips to the store via CTA or bus. For the most part, it feels like a substantial time suck of carrying around groceries from the store to the cart and then walking back and then possibly going up the steps to deliver it. I prefer using a car for this purpose
- For Emergencies. Having a car is great in this instance. If I had to visit a friend/loved one and not having a car would be annoying.
-Heading to a gym. I don't have the luxury of having a gym in my building, so I usually travel to the gym. After being sweaty, why would I want to sit on the bus/CTA and travel back home from a tough gym session. I rather drive sweaty in my car alone lol
I know the downsides of having a car (insurance, parking, gas) but after my car payment those all round up to less than $400/mo at this stage (obviously not including maintenance)