I think that's part of the problem though, as a consequence of car ownership we've normalized having a terrible commute. We can't build traffic-free cities if we're not committed to the idea.

The commute is created by the expense of moving closer to work.

If renting, you may suffer a rent control reset.

If owning, you lose 10% of the home's value to various middlemen. You also get a reset on property taxes.

Either way, you also have the opportunity cost associated with a house search, and you have the moving expenses.

It's still a symptom of the root issue -- sparse, car-centric cities. I live in NYC and the odds of me switching jobs to the point where I'd need to move (or purchase a car) are basically nil. Even if the only job I could find was in Stamford I'd still have a better commute than a lot of people in LA.

I think you aren't seeing all the options:

  1. super-dense city core (your current situation)
  2. mega sprawl like LA and Houston
  3. traditional suburb, with long commute into a city
  4. out on the farm/ranch, maybe telecommuting
  5. small town
  6. small city

In particular, I think #6 is what you are missing out on. By that I mean the sort of place with 50 to 100 thousand people, laid out like a suburb but not oriented around commuting to a big city. The population density would be 1000 to 2000 per square mile.

In this sort of place, commuting is easy by both bicycle and car. Traffic is seldom much of a concern. Parking is plentiful. Usually the houses are cheap, frequently 100 to 500 thousand for free-standing homes with yards. Usually the schools are good, with enough people to have a full set of advanced classes at the local high school.

I've lived in several of these in several states. My commute is typically single-digit miles. I normally drive, but walking isn't much trouble. Currently I walk less than a mile. I'll need to do 5 miles in the near future, which should take 10 minutes by car.

What is not to like about it?

There's also option #7, small city that's a short commute away from a large city. There are a lot of places in New England that are like this.

Furthermore, there seems to be an implicit assumption that the job is in the large city--which it often isn't.

Small city has 0 or 1 employers that are larger than local in scope. It's fine if you are an accountant or dentist or carpenter and there aren't too many like you in town already, but what if you work in a specialized industry?

Consider Melbourne, FL. It's in that size range.

It has Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Harris, Embraer, GE Transportation Systems, GE Energy Management, FightLite Industries, Thales, Raytheon, DRS, and a bunch of little cyberwar startups.

So there is plenty related to aircraft, cyberwar, and generally all sorts of engineering/manufacturing/etc. for government (especially military) purposes.

Working in a specialized industry is fine. The city is specialized.

OTOH, moving elsewhere is not the end of the world. There are many other fine small cities all across America. You don't have to live where there is more than one job suited for you. Moving every now and then will let you experience more of America.

It doesn't scale, by definition.

It scales just fine. The continental USA can hold about 200000 of these, with a total population of 6 to 12 billion. (hey, that's everybody!)

Scale by making more cities, not bigger cities.

Heresy!

If you don't live in SFO or NYC you're doomed to a miserable existence of restless toil.

I know you say this in jest, but I'll be damned if this isn't a sadly predominant attitude among people I know.

If NYC was such a bad idea, why is it a massive portion of the US economy?

It's not a bad idea. There's just a few hundred million of us that don't want to live there/that way. I'm happy for everyone that does want to be there.

I didn't say it was a bad idea.

But... a significant percentage of professional jobs are in the NY Metro area, but not in the movie ideal NYC environment.

Serious question: what would it look like if everyone needed to live in a NYC. Of course there would be more of them, but the big cities would probably get bigger. What would a double-size NYC look like? Living somewhere so big and crowded that officials physically press/pack people into a subway car at rush hour sounds awful to me. But folks in Tokyo put up with it. Makes me wonder if it's by choice. Honestly wonder...

Two body problems almost always mean one body has to sacrifice for the other.

unless you stack the bodies in a high rise at different prices :)

"Two body problem" refers to a married couple. It is p^2 as hard to find good jobs near a potential home.

We are the privileged few. Most people are in dire straights. So yes, I'm thankful to have that option.