4 ms·

Also everyone drives, even to fetch milk from nearest convenience store. It's too easy not to have any exercise all day

by mtw 8y ago

lawlessone 8y ago
To be fair in my experience you have to drive in the US. Everything seems to be very far apart. A shop here in Ireland for me is a short walk down the road. A nearby shop in the US tends to be a lot further.
- InitialLastName 8y ago
  Everything is very far apart because everyone drives. Everyone has to drive because everything is very far apart. It's a vicious cycle that does a fantastic job of exacerbating societal issues, especially poverty, obesity, and air quality.
  - lawlessone 8y ago
    great if you want a bigger house though.
    - InitialLastName 8y ago
      Well, you'll need a bigger house to fit your bigger children. Snark aside, I think that if more of the societal costs of owning a bigger house were priced in to having a bigger house, fewere people would want bigger houses. There's no reason we HAVE to live in a society fueled by consumerist real estate envy. EDIT: Forgot a word
stronglikedan 8y ago
There's plenty of metropolitan cities where no one has to drive, but there's plenty of rural areas where it's pretty much a necessity, and plenty of suburban areas where you can easily bike everywhere (or even walk if you have the time or drive if you don't). The greatest thing about the US is the choices you get to make for yourself - no matter which lifestyle you choose to live, you can find somewhere to fit that lifestyle in the US.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  ...as long as you're rich. If you take a typical median-income family, plot out a reasonable household budget and daily schedule, and then try to match it with every place in the US, most of the results will show that the family must own at least one car and spend an hour a day driving it. It's the only way to afford being there at all. The desirable areas are priced out of their reach, because there just aren't enough of them. I'd love for all my daily transit to be on elevators and electric trains. But I also want my public school district to have enough money to pay its teachers without taxing me, specifically, into oblivion. For reasons I cannot comprehend, my employer wants to locate its workplace in the middle of a bunch of office buildings, where they enjoy lower facilities costs and a lower tax rate, while still benefiting from an educated workforce. So I pretty much have to drive a while between home and work. If I lived close to work, I couldn't afford the place. If I worked close to home, the jobs nearby wouldn't pay enough to cover housing.
  - stronglikedan 8y ago
    Since we're dealing purely in anecdata, I live 4 miles from a job that covers my housing, and I'm far from rich. I could choose to put myself in a different situation, but I chose my current situation and am quite happy.
    - logfromblammo 8y ago
      > Since we're dealing purely in anecdata... The median household income is roughly $60k. 86% of workers commute using a privately-owned automobile (ACS data), with about 3/4 commuting by driving solo. The mean commute time is about 26 minutes. This situation might be exacerbated by the fact that the median tenure at a job is hovering just above 4 years, and home mortgages are 30 years. So if you buy a house and want to pay off the loan on schedule, you now have to make sure it is close to 7.5 different jobs in your industry. ...Per person working in your household. Married? Site your home near 15 jobs, some of which might not even exist yet. This doesn't even account for what happens when your company decides to build on a new campus for all of its workers. By the home affordability rule of thumb that you can afford 2x to 2.5x your annual income on your mortgage loan, the median household can afford a house at $120k to $150k. Find a pile of those within biking distance of 15 different jobs in one or two careers that pay $30k to $60k per year. You won't, outside a handful of large cities, and the majority of the US doesn't live there, as shown by the commuting data.

Also everyone drives, even to fetch milk from nearest convenience store. It's too easy not to have any exercise all day

by mtw 8y ago

Also everyone drives, even to fetch milk from nearest convenience store. It's too easy not to have any exercise all day

To be fair in my experience you have to drive in the US. Everything seems to be very far apart. A shop here in Ireland for me is a short walk down the road. A nearby shop in the US tends to be a lot further.

InitialLastName 8y ago
Everything is very far apart because everyone drives. Everyone has to drive because everything is very far apart. It's a vicious cycle that does a fantastic job of exacerbating societal issues, especially poverty, obesity, and air quality.
- lawlessone 8y ago
  great if you want a bigger house though.
  - InitialLastName 8y ago
    Well, you'll need a bigger house to fit your bigger children. Snark aside, I think that if more of the societal costs of owning a bigger house were priced in to having a bigger house, fewere people would want bigger houses. There's no reason we HAVE to live in a society fueled by consumerist real estate envy. EDIT: Forgot a word

stronglikedan 8y ago

There's plenty of metropolitan cities where no one has to drive, but there's plenty of rural areas where it's pretty much a necessity, and plenty of suburban areas where you can easily bike everywhere (or even walk if you have the time or drive if you don't). The greatest thing about the US is the choices you get to make for yourself - no matter which lifestyle you choose to live, you can find somewhere to fit that lifestyle in the US.

logfromblammo 8y ago
...as long as you're rich. If you take a typical median-income family, plot out a reasonable household budget and daily schedule, and then try to match it with every place in the US, most of the results will show that the family must own at least one car and spend an hour a day driving it. It's the only way to afford being there at all. The desirable areas are priced out of their reach, because there just aren't enough of them. I'd love for all my daily transit to be on elevators and electric trains. But I also want my public school district to have enough money to pay its teachers without taxing me, specifically, into oblivion. For reasons I cannot comprehend, my employer wants to locate its workplace in the middle of a bunch of office buildings, where they enjoy lower facilities costs and a lower tax rate, while still benefiting from an educated workforce. So I pretty much have to drive a while between home and work. If I lived close to work, I couldn't afford the place. If I worked close to home, the jobs nearby wouldn't pay enough to cover housing.
- stronglikedan 8y ago
  Since we're dealing purely in anecdata, I live 4 miles from a job that covers my housing, and I'm far from rich. I could choose to put myself in a different situation, but I chose my current situation and am quite happy.
  - logfromblammo 8y ago
    > Since we're dealing purely in anecdata... The median household income is roughly $60k. 86% of workers commute using a privately-owned automobile (ACS data), with about 3/4 commuting by driving solo. The mean commute time is about 26 minutes. This situation might be exacerbated by the fact that the median tenure at a job is hovering just above 4 years, and home mortgages are 30 years. So if you buy a house and want to pay off the loan on schedule, you now have to make sure it is close to 7.5 different jobs in your industry. ...Per person working in your household. Married? Site your home near 15 jobs, some of which might not even exist yet. This doesn't even account for what happens when your company decides to build on a new campus for all of its workers. By the home affordability rule of thumb that you can afford 2x to 2.5x your annual income on your mortgage loan, the median household can afford a house at $120k to $150k. Find a pile of those within biking distance of 15 different jobs in one or two careers that pay $30k to $60k per year. You won't, outside a handful of large cities, and the majority of the US doesn't live there, as shown by the commuting data.