Families in D.C. spend almost $13K more per year to live in the city than the suburbs

In order to calculate how much living in the suburban and urban parts of a city cost, Zillow and Care.com have identified three common living expenses. These include property taxes, mortgage payment, and child care costs based on rates listed on Care.com.

For the urban areas of Washington, D.C., the average annual housing and child care expenses total $55,917. For the suburban areas of the city, the cost drops to $43,085.

When it comes to the median size of a home in the urban areas of the District, that comes to 1,292, roughly 500 square feet less than the suburban areas, which total 1,724 square feet.

On a national level, families spend an average of $43,652 to cover basic housing and child care costs in the city, and only $34,579 to cover those costs in the suburbs.

Nationally, the median square footage for a home in the suburbs and the city is 1,654 and 1,375, respectively.

See more of Zillow and Care.com’s coverage of cities around the nation in this article.

[UPDATE: A previous headline of this article specified that living in the suburbs costs more than in the city. The inverse of this is correct.]

• City Living Costs Families Up to $9,000 More a Year Than Suburban [Zillow]

• Find Out Where the Suburbs Begin and End in Washington, D.C. [Curbed DC]