I don't know where you live and work but in the Northeast, a house near work can easily cost $800,000+ yet the same house 50 miles away may only cost $450,000. You have to do what you have to do... So driving a Hybrid compensates somewhat.

 

I have a 100 mile daily commute, almost 50 mile each way, and live in rural N. Ga - driving into the city of Atlanta.

We didn't choose city living for several reasons.

#1 Our kids. Atlanta schools are worse than terrible for many reasons and have the worst scores of the nation. Violence is rampent, even murder "happens" and classes are overbooked. Compare this to the countryside school which is more controlled, smaller classes, more personal and easier to communicate with.
#2 Traffic. Driving in the city for the most part is a crowd...you get in line every where ever you go. Jams are common and people are generally rude. Horns blare and fingers fly freely. Nobody cares. Everyone out for themselves.
#3 Smog. We choose upwind from the city and is generally healthier for our family.
#4. Housing is cheaper, as someone else already mentioned. Our 2,800sq ft home on 3/4 acre cost just under $150K 6 years ago, while the same home in the city on 1/4 acre lot was more than tripple the cost.
#5 People are generally friendlier in the country and crime is lower. People are more easy going.
#6 As an afterthought....
They say it's not if...but when the bad guys will attack us again.
They're not going to target our tiny town, but Atlanta is certainly a target.
While our family would likely still be effected, at least we might have more time to react- even in the case of nuclear blast.

There's many more reasons why our family prefers country living, but our gasoline fuel bill was killing us with our old Dodge that did 16-18MPG.

So.....I bought the HCH and as my signiture suggests we're saving alot of money.

We wouldn't even consider city living.

 

i'm with hot georgia about the crime and dirt in the cities. i moved to a small town from minneapolis 10 years ago. i had a ten mile drive to work at a very good job for this area in central minnesota. in january 2001 we stumbled upon a small farm 40 miles north of where we work, and we bought it. at the time gas was considered cheap and none of the hysteria that affects our country now had started. my job is STILL a great job for the area, there are no jobs in the small town closest to us except perhaps at wal-mart. we are both hopefully about 6-7 years from retirement and the financial hit we would take in purchasing a more expensive place closer to work is not worth the change. when i am done working, i want to be out here in the country, not stuck in town. with my car i can almost justify the drive, since i use 1.5 gallons per day to get to work, and weekends are generally spent at home. works for me.

 

In all honesty, I don't drive my car very much, despite the fact that I've put 10k miles on it since June. My house is about a mile away from the med school, which is where I really live since I'm there all day every day (and yes, I've slept there!). So, I bike in every day. I bike to the grocery store, I bike to my favorite Mexican restaurant, I bike to Target when I need household things. Even when it's cold or nasty outside (really, though, it's South Carolina, it can't get too cold). It would be so much easier just to putz around town in my car, and I'd happily claim innocence because I drive a hybrid, but I think that's just wasteful when everything I need is within a mile or three from where I live.

The reason my car has so many miles already is that it's a road trip vehicle. I need to get up to northern Virginia and the Chicago area relatively often, and driving a hybrid is definitely cheaper than flying! Also, it HAS to pollute less. I can defend that behavior, especially versus flying a dirty jet airplane.

 

over the summer i worked for my grandfather, a 40 mile drive each way. the worst part was not how far it was really, but how long it took to get there. i don't know why any one would choose to have such a long commute if they didn't have to. my boyfriend is currently doing the same commute for school. he hates wasting 2 hours every day just driving. he wants to move out, get a dorm or an apartment but his parents won't help/let him.
when we first moved to south florida (so i could go to an arts magnet high school... we had to live in palm beach county) my mom could only find the job she was looking for in the county north of us. i don't know how long her drive was but that's why she got her 95 civic in the first place (which by the way got rear ended this morning with no damage done, it's one tough cookie). she has since found a new job that is right across from my high school where my little sister now goes. which is about 15 miles from our house.
whoever had my HCH before me must have lived far from work, he put 3k miles on it a month!

 

I am enjoying this thread a lot. I just finished a great book called "The World Is Flat" by Thomas Freidman that details some of what you said. I personally believe it is doable for many businesses but it will take a complete reference/starting point change for management, workers, and government for it to happen. 100 years ago everyone lived close to work. The affordable automobile and cheap energy changed that necessity, leading us to where we are now. Cheap and fast communications (audio and video) are now headed toward giving us the advantages of both living anywhere we want and being able to collaborate like we are all across the table. Its the details of the transition and our ability to adapt as world businesses (both consumers and producers) that holds the key. What a great time to be alive to witness it!

 

As an Architect, I could rant all day about urban sprawl, dependancy on the Automobile, , etc... and have always thought everyone should live near where they work. I live and work in downtown Indianapolis. Of course my wife (recently married) just finished graduate work and got a tenure track job teaching social Work at a University 50 miles away. There are only two universities with Social work dept's in Central Indiana, so there isn't much choice except for her to commute. We love living in downtown Indy, and I shudder at the thought of living in the burbs between her workplace and mine. Anyway, now I have to be careful how much I rant about the evils of long commutes, etc...

 

Nothing wrong with living close to where you work - but sometimes it's not possible.

And even for those who do live close to their current job (I intentionally moved 5.3 miles from my work) there are many times when they have root family in far away states and need to drive there (as I do, twice a year taking 2500 mile roundtrips to Texas.)

Long commutes are unfortunate, but sometimes unavoidable. For the last 8 years prior to May 2004 I had at LEAST a 44 mile round trip commute, because the only area I could afford a decent sized home was that far away.......

 

Here in San Diego housing is so expensive that many people with families commute 50 miles each way so they can afford a home.

 

It should be interesting to see if this starts to shift as we run out of fossil fuel in the next 20+ years. I predict there will be a gradual shift towards people living closer to their workplaces...... and I predict that some of the burbs could become the next "ghettos"..... especially with the cheap construction and unsustainable infrastructure (cost of upkeep for suburbs is much higher because of low density).

I grew up in the country and loved it. I find that I adapted to the near downtown area here in Indianapolis very well, because there is little traffic, low crime, and the community is very pedestrian friendly. I understand long commutes are sometime necessary as I mentioned above about my wife, but I shudder to think about living in the suburbs around Indy, as the traffic is crazy, the built environment is ugly, poorly planned and has no character. Thats just me though.... and in Indy we are lucky enough to have decent home prices near downtown.