Housing and Transport Affordability in Melbourne: Insights from Qualitative Fieldwork

Abstract

Most research in Australia has measured housing affordability in terms of housing cost as a proportion of household income. We adopted a new measure that combined housing cost with transportation cost. This new measure showed that many suburbs which seemed affordable on housing costs alone became unaffordable when transport costs were taken into account. In this report we provide insights gained from employing a qualitative approach to explore the lived meanings and consequences of housing and transportation costs. We investigate the combined impacts of housing and transportation costs, as well as the residential and lifestyle choices, trade-offs and adaptations that people make. For this purpose, we selected three outer fringe suburbs for this study Pakenham, Dandenong and Craigieburn. Housing in these suburbs was cheaper, but living in these suburbs entailed significant transport costs, both financial and non-financial. We carried out in-depth face-to-face interviews with over 70 respondents across the three suburbs.