Statistics show that more people are drawn to the idea of city life, with people migrating in large numbers from rural locations to urban environments. Many of those people are very selective when it comes to buying a form of transportation they can use to move around their new environment productively, without running into too many problems.Often, people are looking for transportation on a budget as well and focused on cars that occupy the lower end of the automotive spectrum. And for those people, a Nissan Versa Note could be the ideal answer. This was a car that Nissan designed to deliver maximum usefulness from a very small footprint, for busy city people on a real budget. And even though it's long out of production, with deliveries ending after the 2019 model year, there are still a lot of good used examples below $8,000. The Versa Note Is One Of The Smartest City Cars You Can Buy NissanNissan engineers did a very efficient job of designing the Versa Note, and it's a far more usable car than its exterior size might suggest. It sits on a 102.4-inch wheelbase with an overall length of 163 inches, but has a total interior volume of 112.9 cubic feet. The hatchback version has 94 cu. ft. of passenger space with 19 for luggage, and you can also get up to 38.3 cu. ft. of storage space if you fold the rear seats down. This is exactly the type of packaging that should work well in the city, where curbside parking may be tight, but owners still need room for adult passengers, groceries, strollers, or folding bikes.Inside the Versa Note is a relatively tall cabin with generous headroom, and the rear legroom is respectable enough by current standards. This makes the Note a genuinely practical subcompact and not just a tiny penalty box with a hatch. Instead, it’s something that you can really use, place confidently in traffic, and park easily.When it was new in 2015, a Versa Note would cost you $14,180 for the S variant that came with a five-speed manual. The SR and SL CVT versions were also available, costing around $18,000 before destination. And while those prices were genuinely affordable back then, the affordability story remains today. You can find examples for less than $8,000 now and for that kind of price, many alternatives tend to be older, less efficient, more worn, or significantly less spacious. The Interior Space Is The Reason This Footprint Works So Well Nissan Many city cars force a trade-off because their design may make them easy to maneuver on the one hand but more cramped on the other. Alternatively, they may be roomy enough inside, but they tend to be too long or too awkward for that brutal urban traffic environment. The Versa Note seems to be somewhere in the middle with a wheelbase that's long enough to open up cabin space, and an overall length and width that makes a difference on the high street.Nissan marketed the Versa Note as a five-passenger hatch that had smart packaging, and the company wasn't wrong. It might never have won any design awards, but that wasn't the point, as practicality was the name of the game. You'd get that upright roofline, tall doors, and useful rear hatch opening to make it much easier to live with than narrower or lower cars that may have looked tidier on paper. You could get adults in the back without too much drama and still have cargo room to make city life less annoying.People often think that cheap Nissans from the mid-2010s were very basic and often cramped, but while the Versa Note was never going to set the performance world alight, it was absolutely going to be useful for owners. This meant fewer compromises for their daily lives, with a vehicle that was also capable of carrying them and their luggage for a weekend away. And crucially, those owners could avoid the constant frustration of having a car that was simply too small inside. Fuel Economy Strong Enough To Matter Nissan The Nissan Versa Note was far from complicated on the engineering side. It was just a normal gas-powered hatchback that was still able to deliver quite respectable mileage without demanding any hybrid complexity. EPA ratings for the 2015 Versa hatchback with a CVT show 31 mpg city, 40 mpg highway, and 35 mpg combined, and those are useful enough numbers for a city-biased car. The 31-mpg figure in city environments is what matters most when a lot of your time is spent on stop-and-go commuting or on short errands. And in those situations, a larger crossover would burn significantly more fuel and also be a lot harder to maneuver. Watch Out For The CVT And Buy Carefully Nissan CVT cars tend to dominate the Versa Note market today, but it's important to be aware of their sketchy reputation. Nissan's attempt at CVT engineering in that era was not the best and that led to quite a few issues for early owners. And while that doesn't automatically make a CVT Note a bad buy, it does mean that you should look carefully at the paperwork before buying.To start with, make sure that previous owners used genuine Nissan CVT fluid NS-2 or NS-3 only and study the car's service history. In the owner's manual, Nissan recommends that you only take the car to a dealer when it comes to checking or replacing the CVT fluid. The company also warns not to mix the NS-3 product with other fluids and says that if you use ATF or non-equivalent fluid, it may damage the transmission.The safest used purchase today is the one that has documented maintenance and signs of a careful outgoing owner. It should display smooth operation from cold and have no shudder under acceleration. Yes, you could avoid the CVT concerns altogether if you buy a five-speed manual, but they're much harder to find in the marketplace. And this means that it's important to be selective and disciplined, which is, in any case, a good idea if you're buying an inexpensive used car. Against The Mitsubishi Mirage, The Nissan Could Be The Grown-Up Choice MitsubishiMitsubishi was very successful at producing low-cost hatchbacks as well, and if you're looking for alternatives, the Mirage may come into the frame. A 2015 Mirage has a 1.2-liter three-cylinder engine producing 74 hp and 74 lb.-ft of torque, with CVT fuel economy ratings of 37 mpg city, 44 highway, and 40 combined. It's also smaller than the Note, measuring 148.8 from front to back, and it has a 96.5 in wheelbase.However, in the case of the Mirage, those numbers may be just too much. As efficient as it is size-wise, its power output levels are significantly lower than the Nissan, and that diminutive size also results in a far smaller cabin and cargo area. The Mirage has 17.2 cu ft of cargo room behind the rear seats and 47 cu ft with the rear seats down, and it has only 86.1 cu ft of passenger volume in total. Those interior stats could matter a lot to the average buyer.By contrast, the Versa Note has a bigger passenger compartment with near-compact-car usability and is still quite city-friendly on the outside. The Mirage may well be more austere, but the Nissan is probably the better-balanced answer. The Versa Note Is A Sensible Choice Nissan The Versa Note is very frumpy in many respects, and it's never going to be as cool as a Honda Fit or as charming as a Fiat 500. But when you ground it in the realities of everyday ownership, it scores highly. It’s roomy enough for normal life, small enough for city motoring, and efficient enough to keep gas costs down. And as Nissan kept selling it through 2019, you can still find relatively late cars that have decent equipment and modern safety tech, and within budget too - the CarBuzz Marketplace shows numerous final model-year examples trading for in and around $8,000, with higher-mileage examples commanding much less, while the best preserved examples still look to command north of $10,000.All told, the Versa Note may not be the most exhilarating answer for your $8,000 or so, but it may be the most rational one. Just make sure you pay attention to the CVT history and other paperwork so you can buy the right example. If you're suitably careful, you could then discover a hatchback that knows perfectly well what a city car ought to be. And as it trundles around town, it can fit into those small spaces, carry all your people and their stuff without drama, sip its fuel, and not punish you simply because you're on a budget.