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Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the world
Americas+1 212 318 2000
EMEA+44 20 7330 7500
Asia Pacific+65 6212 1000
After a bump in urban car ownership during the pandemic, carless households are again on the rise in Seattle and a few other cities.
Who needs four wheels?
Photographer: Lucia Buricelli/Bloomberg
When it comes to motor vehicle ownership in the US, there’s New York City and there’s everywhere else. That is, everywhere else in the country, most households have at least one car, van or truck, and in New York City most don’t. Citywide, 56.7% of households had zero vehicles in 2024, according to data released this month from the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey. The cities that ranked second and third nationally are just across the Hudson River in New Jersey, and nine of the top 25 are in the New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area (more New York City suburbs would make the list but don’t have the minimum of 65,000 inhabitants required for the Census Bureau to release single-year ACS data).1
In the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn, the zero-vehicle share is higher than the city’s. Even not-very-urban Staten Island had the 17th-highest car-free household percentage in 2024 among US counties with 65,000 or more inhabitants — although it’s well below No. 6 Hudson County, New Jersey, sometimes referred to as the sixth borough.

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