Isn’t it the opposite though? The poor aren’t able to live in the most popular busiest areas, and usually have to live on the fringes of the city. They might train in though. This is mostly going to benefit the rich people who can still afford to live in the city, but with rent control there are still some non-rich people in the city.
It is both. People forget that probably a third of all housing in the congestion zone is rent-controlled or public housing.
Half of households in the congestion zone are living at or below 3x federal poverty level ($70K for a family of three). One in six residents makes $20K or less a year.
Really poor people can’t afford cars in the city, and yes, they can exist in the city because of public housing snd rent control. And it really isn’t the cars that are expensive, or even operating the cars, but the parking.
There are lots of middle class commuters who can’t afford to live in the city: they aren’t lucky enough to win the lottery with a rent controlled unit, and are too rich to live in public housing, but still too poor to live in housing of a standard they can tolerate in the city even if their job is there.
