SAN FRANCISCO — When prospective buyers tour a home for sale, should there be a sticker on the door informing them of the estimated transportation costs that might come with living there?

That was one of dozens of ideas bandied about Wednesday at a real estate conference in San Francisco, but what was special about the proposal was its source.

It didn't come from just another of the hundreds of urban planning and real estate wonks attending the Urban Land Conference, it came from the one representing the Obama administration.

"Affordability is not just the cost of a house," said Shelley Poticha, the newly appointed federal adviser for "sustainable housing and communities." She also is the first person to hold such a position.

The stickers, she said, whether they are actual adhesives or some kind of virtual version, are just one way the government could help make consumers aware of the risks they face when choosing where to live.

As a 25-year resident of Oakland, Poticha is bringing close knowledge of the Bay Area's urban planning challenges and victories to the Department of Housing and Urban Development as she arrives there this fall.

On Wednesday, she was part of a team of current and former federal officials and business people who unveiled "Bay Area Burden," a new index created by a private institute that calculates the costs of living and commuting in the region.

The report found that housing and

A similar analysis has been created for Washington, D.C., and the Urban Land Institute's Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing intends to apply it to Boston next year.

Poticha said the places with the greatest concentration of foreclosures, at least in the Bay Area, have also been places where people are most likely to face long commutes and transportation costs beyond their means.

"It's a problem we may have created in the way we have built our regions," she said.

As thousands of attendees at the Moscone Center walked past a dreamy, 7-foot model of a spiraling Shanghai skyscraper, soon to be China's tallest, they were headed to sober discussions about America's stifled real estate market and how to get out of it.

Some used the newly available information about the Bay Area's high living costs to describe the current model of growth as dysfunctional.

"The cost of housing (in the Bay Area) is just too much," said Henry Cisneros, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Clinton administration.

When coupled with transportation costs, Cisneros said "there simply isn't enough money left for the practicalities of life."

The tone appeared to be a bipartisan one, with a former Bush administration housing official also praising the Bay Area report.

Many developers said they were enthused at what appeared to be growing awareness in the Obama administration of the importance of intelligent regional planning, but were looking for more incentives or specific direction.

"The market cannot by itself supply — under our current zoning regulations, under our current infrastructure, without help from the government — it cannot supply adequate affordable housing close to people's jobs," said J. Ronald Terwilliger, a developer and head of the research center that bears his name.

He described himself as politically independent and historically a Republican.