Economists say home prices are nowhere near hitting bottom. But even in regions that have taken a beating, some neighborhoods remain practically unscathed. And a pattern is emerging as to which neighborhoods those are. The ones with short commutes are faring better than places with long drives into the city. Some analysts see a pause in what has long been inexorable — urban sprawl.

The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area has been hit hard. Prices tumbled an average of 11 percent in the past year. That’s the big picture. But a look at Ashburn, Va., about 40 miles from the center of town, finds a steeper fall.
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Jonathan Hill, vice president of Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, which tracks home sales, sat in his office recently, clicking through page after page of price data sorted by ZIP code. There were a lot of negative numbers, but not in places that are close in or near public transit.
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David Stiff, chief economist for the company that produces the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, saw the trend in other cities, as well - including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, San Diego, Miami and Boston. Stiff recently matched home resale values against commute times and found that in most of these major metropolitan areas, the trend is the same. The longer the commute, the steeper the drop in prices.