[ghaff]

Many, many jobs may be in urban areas but aren't actually in cities/urban cores. In fact, the movement of many professional jobs into cities is a relatively recent phenomenon.

And while Silicon Valley and the greater NYC area are something of exceptions, you get out of the urban cores of somewhere like Boston/Cambridge and housing prices go down fairly quickly except for some particularly upscale towns.

[eli_gottlieb]

Somerville is expensive as hell, despite the fact that it used to be known as "Slumerville" and the housing stock hasn't improved one bit.

[ghaff]

Well, I certainly consider Somerville part of the urban cores of Boston being on the T (sort of) etc. And it's expensive as a result. But get out beyond 128 and, with the exception of some specific communities like Concord, housing prices drop considerably.

[jghn]

I think they're counting Somerville and similar locales as part of the urban core. By that metric though places like Mattapan should also be part of the urban core and are a lot more affordable.

[ghaff]

Somerville is more accessible to both Cambridge and downtownish Boston where a lot of the professional jobs are than somewhere like Mattapan. But to your broader point, yes, there are certainly parts of the City of Boston that are considerably cheaper albeit less desirable from housing stock, safety, environment, etc. perspectives.