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This Graph Pits the Suburbs Against NYC, via Commute Times

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It's been said before and will be said again: Time is money. People who work in New York City spend much of their time commuting, and NeighborhoodX, a real estate/data start-up focused on neighborhood-level analysis, has crunched the numbers for commuting time and price per square foot. Some of the results might surprise you and even make you rethink where you've decided to call home.

The numbers are based on a commute to Midtown via mass transit, mostly via rail (some by bus). (On the actual site, you can mouse over to see real estate values.) Let's look at New Jersey: Hoboken and Jersey City are usually fairly obvious living alternatives, but Newark isn't necessarily. Compare the commute from Newark to the commute from the uppermost Manhattan neighborhood. It takes 32 minutes to get from Inwood, where real estate is $445 per square foot, but only takes 29 minutes to get from downtown Newark, where it's only $90 per square foot.

Another interesting comparison is between Fort Lee, N.J. and Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. The commute time from the borough atop the Palisades is 44 minutes, compared to the subway-tastic 29-minute ride from the county of Kings. However, consider that you're paying $1,172 per square foot there, versus only $297 per square foot across the Hudson River. Does this mean we should all move to New Jersey? Maybe not—but it may make you reconsider where you look for your next apartment.
· Suburbs vs. city commute times [NeighborhoodX]
· Does It Pay For New Yorkers to Live Farther Away From Work? [Curbed]