Role of transportation cost in housing affordability for the urban poor in the metropolitan cities in India- a case of Lucknow

Abstract

Housing affordability is conventionally measured by the thumb rule of 30% of monthly income spent on housing. This thumb rule does not consider location, transportation cost, or accessibility. However, if a residence is far away and requires expensive travel, it is not actually affordable. Multiple planning goals can be accomplished by increasing the availability of inexpensive housing in convenient places, including decreasing transport costs, improving economic opportunities for underprivileged groups, lowering accident risk, conserving energy, and lowering pollution emissions. An H+T affordability index is a tool that is recently developed by researchers to assess the overall cost of housing and transportation relative to household income for different locations in a city. Researchers have recently developed a metric called the H+T affordability index to assess the entire cost of housing and transportation relative to household income for various areas of a city.  This analysis is used in the study of Lucknow, India. The results show that households in suburban areas spend  more than 57% of their monthly income on housing and transportation than those living in central zones and they  spend only 45% of their income on these expenses. This aligns with the findings of other urban regions' studies. This demonstrates the viability of housing and transportation affordability analysis to discover inexpensive and sustainable development in developing countries.