The real housing crisis is one of quantity

Actually my wife found that the 20 minute commute (about 15 miles) was useful in separating work from home and I have heard the same thing from other people. The idea of a minimum commute or separation distance is worth exploring.

Reply to
Clark F Morris
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If planners could have come up with a planned society which had 20 minute commutes they would be screaming, "success, success, success." 20 minutes is a minimum commute.

Reply to
George Conklin

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

George. If the average commute is 24 minutes, the minimum commute ain't 20 minutes.

Overall 20 minutes is the minimum a society is likely to obtain. Even in bicycle-oriented societies, like India used to be, it takes quite a bit of time to get through crowded streets to get to work.

Reply to
George Conklin

I agree that for most people, they need "decompression time" on the way home -- plus a grocery store in many cases. Most people wouldn't like working from home -- especially people in manufacturing.

Reply to
George Conklin

No, the APA has been trying to LENGTHEN commutes for many years now to FORCE people out of their cars.

If reducing communting time and congestion were the goal, they've been using some really bizarre tactics.

Note, too, that of all the money garnered from fuel taxes, how much winds up in the general fund and hou much is poured into road funding of bridges (Ted Stevens) and roads to "no where" (Robert Byrd).

(See earlier post regarding the fallacy of government planning)

As well, local traffic departments have been playing with traffic controls to encourgae violations and increase revenue from traffic fines.

And the whole premise is wrong, given the points above.

Reply to
Matt W. Barrow

Morris" wrote in

If an overall co mmute time of 20 minutes is "ideal" (to which Amy will demand that you cite something); then an average of 24 is pretty darned good. Free markets prevail. People know what they want.

Reply to
George Conklin

Would it be "assemble the Toyota at home" or would it be "live at the Toyota factory"?

Remember all of the old worker-cottages and crappy row housing built next to factories that spewed out who-knows-what from back in the Industrial Revolution days (before good transportation). Well, people left that model and headed to the suburbs to get away from it. People wanted to be away from work. I don't think things have changed too much.

Reply to
George Conklin

Those particular businesses are optimized to work best when _nobody_ lives within walking distance of them, especially Wal-Mart. So of course they'd be unpleasant to live over.

OTOH, I'd _love_ to live over a curry house, as my friend in London did.

Reply to
Amy Blankenship

Burger King might be almost as bad. My wife cooks curry and just one day's worth changes the aroma in the house for 2 weeks.

Reply to
George Conklin

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