The geography of carfree households in the United States

A map of the United States by census tract suggests that–except in a few remote and nearly roadless parts of Alaska–few households are carfree:

Map of the United States showing the percent of occupied households with no vehicle available. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015/2019 American Community Survey, downloaded from the NHGIS-IPUMS website.

In fact, a closer look reveals a different story. In 351 (out of 74,002) tracts, 75 or more percent of occupied households were carfree according to the 2015/2019 American Community Survey.¹  Of these, only four were in Alaska. 312 were in New York, distributed as follows: Manhattan (New York County): 163; the Bronx: 68; Brooklyn (Kings County): 74; Queens: 6; and Staten Island (Richmond County): 1. Other U.S. cities had only a scattering of tracts where carfree levels were as high: San Francisco: 11; Boston: 3; Baltimore: 3; Philadelphia: 3; Washington: 1; Chicago: 1; Los Angeles: 1. High carfree levels in New York (and elsewhere as well) are highly correlated with density.² Here’s a map:

Map of New York and vicinity showing the distribution of occupied households with no vehicle available, 2015/2019. Nominal scale is 1:200,000.

Other older cities in the United States all do have substantial areas where carfree levels are extraordinarily high by American standards, but none of these areas is quite as free of automobiles as large parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. There were 1309 tracts that were more than 50% but less than 75% carfree in 2015/2019. They were widely scattered across the United States. Several of the tracts were in Indian reservations; a few were in pockets of poverty in the South or contained substantial Amish settlements; and a smaller number were in Alaska (where tracts are huge). But most were in large cities. Here’s a list, except for New York essentially by county (cities are not indicated in the data):

New York: 785 [well over half the total!]
Cook County, Ill. (Chicago): 65
Philadelphia: 55
Washington, D.C.: 44
Suffolk County, Mass. (mostly Boston): 37
Baltimore (city): 27
Wayne County, Mich. (mostly Detroit): 19
San Francisco: 18
Cuyahoga County, Ohio (mostly Cleveland): 16
Allegheny County, Pa. (mostly Pittsburgh): 16
Hudson County, N.J. (mostly Jersey City and Hoboken): 16
Essex County, N.J. (mostly Newark): 15
San Juan, P.R.: 14
New Orleans: 9
Los Angeles County, Calif. (mostly Los Angeles): 9
Hamilton County, Ohio (mostly Cincinnati): 9
King County, Wash. (mostly Seattle): 8
Onondaga County, N.Y. (mostly Syracuse): 8
Westchester County, N.Y.: 7
Alameda County, Calif. (mostly Oakland):  3
Saint Louis (city): 2

Here are maps of parts of a few large cities, again showing the distribution of carfree households, on the same nominal scale and with the same class intervals as on the map of New York above.³ Note that, just as in New York, density seems to be the major factor in determining the geography of these areas:

Maps of the central parts of Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Chicago, and San Francisco. Class intervals, colors, and nominal scales are the same as on the map of New York above (exception: pink is used here not just for light-rail lines but also for streetcars and San Francisco’s cable cars).

There were a great many more tracts—4304—in the third category identified on the maps, those in which between 25 and 50% of households had no vehicle available. In 2015/2019 such tracts made up approximately 5.8% of American census tracts. Like the tracts where more than half the households were carfree, they were disproportionately located in America’s denser large cities.⁴ But even many smaller and less dense cities—including most cities of the Sunbelt—had such tracts.⁵ Since most U.S. cities (unlike, say, New York) do not have much in the way of dense, high-prestige neighborhoods, the majority of relatively carfree tracts in smaller cities and in those of the Sunbelt are located in less well-off areas, but population density still appears to be a critical factor in determining their geography. Dense, high-prestige areas like Oakland in Pittsburgh, the Central West End in Saint Louis, South Beach in Miami Beach, and the French Quarter in New Orleans are nearly as carfree as nearby less privileged neighborhoods.⁶

It almost goes without saying that an obvious explanation for the inability of the United States government to do anything much to change car dependence is the country’s high level of car ownership. There are, however, several million households in large cities in which a choice has been made not to acquire an automobile. New York has many more such households than any other urban area. It’s the one large place in the United States where only a minority of households have a vehicle available.

Note added 15 October 2021. I inserted the second paragraph from the end (including footnotes 4, 5, and 6) in response to some questions posed by a couple of readers.