7 ms·

The problems with long commutes all revolve around home ownership. People want big houses on big yards. Most can't afford that close to work, which means they

by cletus 15y ago

The problems with long commutes all revolve around home ownership. People want big houses on big yards. Most can't afford that close to work, which means they make the economic choice to trade the commute time for that "dream". That's fine but the problem is that government subsidizes that dream to a ridiculous degree. Urban sprawl has a huge cost in infrastructure, largely borne by the taxpayer. Low-density urban sprawl largely also makes public transport uneconomic (public transport works best in high density cities and countries). Lastly, home ownership decreases the flexibility of the labour market. People are less able and less inclined to pick up and move to find work opting instead for lower-paid employment or no employment at all.

FrojoS 15y ago
I would be interested in the history of that. Homeownership seems very American to me, but subsidizes not so much [1]. And books or links, that you can recommend? [1] I'm aware there are many subsidizes in the US, for instance in agriculture. Still, it seems to be less than in Europe. There are subsidizes for homeownership in Germany but more people live in rented accommodation.
- omellet 15y ago
  The single biggest subsidy for homeownership in the US is the mortgage interest tax deduction, where you can deduct interest payments on the first $1,000,000 of debt on your first or second home.
  - ahi 15y ago
    I imagine the homestead exemptions (terminology?) are a close second. Most places you get a property tax break on property you live in. Landlords, and therefor renters get to make up the difference.
  - mturmon 15y ago
    Agreed. Another one is Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, which work together to stabilize the home mortgage market, resulting in lower mortgage interest rates than would otherwise be the case.
  - wtvanhest 15y ago
    Yes, interest deduction is a big subsidy, but also roads, cars etc are highly subsidized. I'm on my BB so I can't provide good sources, but if you google subsidies of driving americans etc you will find a lot. In Europe, they charge very high vehicle and gas tax to make up for the roads and keep people from driving. In the US we allow much less wealthy people to drive. Neither is correct, but we in the US highly subsidize commutes.
    - aidenn0 15y ago
      IIRC The US Highway system is cash positive. It is true that the US gas-tax is much lower than just about anywhere else. The easiest way to lose the next election in the US is to propose raising the gas-tax.
- frossie 15y ago
  The biggest difference between the US and somewhere like Germany is the price of land. While land can be expensive in certain highly desireable places, it is possible to buy habitable land in the US for what is a derisory amount of money to a European - often less than $1,000 per acre. This drives the cost of home ownership down to levels that can be aspired to by many people. There is a lot of homebuilding as a result, which also keeps costs low. In comparison, buildable land in a European village or small town can be $100,000/acre - not that you can find an acre to buy anyway. Even if you could afford the land, you would then have to find the same amount again to build the house - so it is much cheaper to rent. Edit: Sorry, you wanted a reference. This older story: http://www.economist.com/node/13491933?story_ID=13491933 http://www.economist.com/node/13491933?story_ID=13491933 It captures some of the US pro-home-ownership arguments lower in the article. Edit #2: Yeah, there are places in Europe cheaper than Germany, but $700,000/acre does not surprise me. I should have added that construction standards are very different between Europe and the US which also accounts for the low cost of housing. In many (most?) parts of the US houses are made of simple timber frames and hence are simply and quickly erected - I have seen houses (the outer shell obviously) go up in as little as two days. In Europe a lot (most?) of housing is made of brick, a more laborious process.
  - fhars 15y ago
    Your price for buildable land in Europe is way off. The average price for land that is ready to build on in germany is around 129€ ( http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Statistiken/Preise/BauImmobilienPreise/Tabellen/Content75/KaufwerteBaulandZeitvergleich,templateId=renderPrint.psml http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/In... ), resulting in about $700,000/acre. Towns are quite a bit more expensive.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 15y ago
      Ho-lee crap! Around here, $10k/acre is considered expensive.
      - tomkarlo 15y ago
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
melling 15y ago
There are a couple of places in the US where there is enough population density to make mass transit work. Unfortunately no one wants to spend the money to improve it. Train and bus travel is painfully slow. Commuter rail travel, for example, averages about 30-40 mph, at best. If that doubled, people could commute from "great distances", or simply live 40 miles from a major city and have a 30 minute commute. Is the problem really that hard to solve?
- checker 15y ago
  I commuted 27 miles (straight line) via commuter rail and it took me 1.5 hours each way. Rent was free (I lived at my parents) but it was tough. I was surprised by how long it took, and by the number of service interruptions that made the trip even longer! I am now happily working 1.2 miles from home.
  - boredguy8 15y ago
    I live 1.4 miles from home, and walking to and from work is one of the best choices I ever made for my physical and mental well-being. If you don't walk to work and can, I highly recommend trying it.
    - dredmorbius 15y ago
      You should move closer to home. ;-)
    - aidenn0 15y ago
      Including stop-lights it takes me 20 minutes to walk a mile. I too live about 1.4 miles from work, but I don't have a spare hour each day for walking.
      - checker 15y ago
        I plan on fixing up my bike over the winter. I walked this morning and it does take a while. It also feels rather dangerous given all the construction going on around here.
jseliger 15y ago
They also revolve around people who fail to understand trade-offs and opportunity costs. This never became clearer to me than after I read "The Soul of a Commuter" in the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_paumgarten?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_... . I actually just submitted it to HN as a regular article; it seems germane to this discussion, and as far as I can tell no one else has offered a point. Most interesting to me: the long discussion of the research showing the negative effects of commuting.
jmspring 15y ago
It doesn't all revolve around home ownership. There are a number of people who make decisions on where to live based on their lifestyle interests. Reed Hastings happens to live in Santa Cruz and was quoted in a chat about making a conscious choice about living in Santa Cruz County and having that separation "line" dividing work and the personal. Many people who live in Santa Cruz and do the commute feel the same (ignoring the fact that there is little to no tech industry here anymore). Big houses and big yards? I've got a bungalow that is smaller than any house I lived in growing up (probably by a factor of two). Urban sprawl may have a huge cost in infrastructure, but the lack of planning to put in commute alternatives (like trains) are just as damning. In Germany, there are friends that live 30-40min outside of Munich and happily take the train daily. They don't necessarily want to live in the city. Which goes to your argument of "Low-density urban sprawl largely also makes public transport uneconomic" -- in general, sure, but again infrastructure planning can offset this. This country, unfortunately, doesn't believe in planning for infrastructure. Trains? Unprofitable boondoggles! (or so some think)
- mseebach 15y ago
  > It doesn't all revolve around home ownership. Agreed. I live in a flat in semi-central London and I cycle to work in a little more than half an hour. Life is good, but during weekends it really rubs me that I have at least an hours worth of travelling to do before I can get to some uninterrupted countryside.
tomkarlo 15y ago
I don't want a big house with a big yard. I grew up in Manhattan and I'm perfectly happy in an apartment. Yet in San Francisco, despite sky-high rentals, there's a shortage of rental apartment buildings, apparently because the city restricts their construction and height. And then they wonder why people move out of town as their families grow - SF has one of the lowest proportions of households with small children of any city in the nation.

by cletus 15y ago

FrojoS 15y ago

I would be interested in the history of that. Homeownership seems very American to me, but subsidizes not so much [1]. And books or links, that you can recommend? [1] I'm aware there are many subsidizes in the US, for instance in agriculture. Still, it seems to be less than in Europe. There are subsidizes for homeownership in Germany but more people live in rented accommodation.

omellet 15y ago
The single biggest subsidy for homeownership in the US is the mortgage interest tax deduction, where you can deduct interest payments on the first $1,000,000 of debt on your first or second home.
- ahi 15y ago
  I imagine the homestead exemptions (terminology?) are a close second. Most places you get a property tax break on property you live in. Landlords, and therefor renters get to make up the difference.
- mturmon 15y ago
  Agreed. Another one is Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, which work together to stabilize the home mortgage market, resulting in lower mortgage interest rates than would otherwise be the case.
- wtvanhest 15y ago
  Yes, interest deduction is a big subsidy, but also roads, cars etc are highly subsidized. I'm on my BB so I can't provide good sources, but if you google subsidies of driving americans etc you will find a lot. In Europe, they charge very high vehicle and gas tax to make up for the roads and keep people from driving. In the US we allow much less wealthy people to drive. Neither is correct, but we in the US highly subsidize commutes.
  - aidenn0 15y ago
    IIRC The US Highway system is cash positive. It is true that the US gas-tax is much lower than just about anywhere else. The easiest way to lose the next election in the US is to propose raising the gas-tax.
frossie 15y ago
The biggest difference between the US and somewhere like Germany is the price of land. While land can be expensive in certain highly desireable places, it is possible to buy habitable land in the US for what is a derisory amount of money to a European - often less than $1,000 per acre. This drives the cost of home ownership down to levels that can be aspired to by many people. There is a lot of homebuilding as a result, which also keeps costs low. In comparison, buildable land in a European village or small town can be $100,000/acre - not that you can find an acre to buy anyway. Even if you could afford the land, you would then have to find the same amount again to build the house - so it is much cheaper to rent. Edit: Sorry, you wanted a reference. This older story: http://www.economist.com/node/13491933?story_ID=13491933 http://www.economist.com/node/13491933?story_ID=13491933 It captures some of the US pro-home-ownership arguments lower in the article. Edit #2: Yeah, there are places in Europe cheaper than Germany, but $700,000/acre does not surprise me. I should have added that construction standards are very different between Europe and the US which also accounts for the low cost of housing. In many (most?) parts of the US houses are made of simple timber frames and hence are simply and quickly erected - I have seen houses (the outer shell obviously) go up in as little as two days. In Europe a lot (most?) of housing is made of brick, a more laborious process.
- fhars 15y ago
  Your price for buildable land in Europe is way off. The average price for land that is ready to build on in germany is around 129€ ( http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Statistiken/Preise/BauImmobilienPreise/Tabellen/Content75/KaufwerteBaulandZeitvergleich,templateId=renderPrint.psml http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/In... ), resulting in about $700,000/acre. Towns are quite a bit more expensive.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 15y ago
    Ho-lee crap! Around here, $10k/acre is considered expensive.
    - tomkarlo 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

melling 15y ago

There are a couple of places in the US where there is enough population density to make mass transit work. Unfortunately no one wants to spend the money to improve it. Train and bus travel is painfully slow. Commuter rail travel, for example, averages about 30-40 mph, at best. If that doubled, people could commute from "great distances", or simply live 40 miles from a major city and have a 30 minute commute. Is the problem really that hard to solve?

checker 15y ago
I commuted 27 miles (straight line) via commuter rail and it took me 1.5 hours each way. Rent was free (I lived at my parents) but it was tough. I was surprised by how long it took, and by the number of service interruptions that made the trip even longer! I am now happily working 1.2 miles from home.
- boredguy8 15y ago
  I live 1.4 miles from home, and walking to and from work is one of the best choices I ever made for my physical and mental well-being. If you don't walk to work and can, I highly recommend trying it.
  - dredmorbius 15y ago
    You should move closer to home. ;-)
  - aidenn0 15y ago
    Including stop-lights it takes me 20 minutes to walk a mile. I too live about 1.4 miles from work, but I don't have a spare hour each day for walking.
    - checker 15y ago
      I plan on fixing up my bike over the winter. I walked this morning and it does take a while. It also feels rather dangerous given all the construction going on around here.

jseliger 15y ago

They also revolve around people who fail to understand trade-offs and opportunity costs. This never became clearer to me than after I read "The Soul of a Commuter" in the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_paumgarten?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_... . I actually just submitted it to HN as a regular article; it seems germane to this discussion, and as far as I can tell no one else has offered a point. Most interesting to me: the long discussion of the research showing the negative effects of commuting.

jmspring 15y ago

It doesn't all revolve around home ownership. There are a number of people who make decisions on where to live based on their lifestyle interests. Reed Hastings happens to live in Santa Cruz and was quoted in a chat about making a conscious choice about living in Santa Cruz County and having that separation "line" dividing work and the personal. Many people who live in Santa Cruz and do the commute feel the same (ignoring the fact that there is little to no tech industry here anymore). Big houses and big yards? I've got a bungalow that is smaller than any house I lived in growing up (probably by a factor of two). Urban sprawl may have a huge cost in infrastructure, but the lack of planning to put in commute alternatives (like trains) are just as damning. In Germany, there are friends that live 30-40min outside of Munich and happily take the train daily. They don't necessarily want to live in the city. Which goes to your argument of "Low-density urban sprawl largely also makes public transport uneconomic" -- in general, sure, but again infrastructure planning can offset this. This country, unfortunately, doesn't believe in planning for infrastructure. Trains? Unprofitable boondoggles! (or so some think)

mseebach 15y ago
> It doesn't all revolve around home ownership. Agreed. I live in a flat in semi-central London and I cycle to work in a little more than half an hour. Life is good, but during weekends it really rubs me that I have at least an hours worth of travelling to do before I can get to some uninterrupted countryside.

tomkarlo 15y ago

I don't want a big house with a big yard. I grew up in Manhattan and I'm perfectly happy in an apartment. Yet in San Francisco, despite sky-high rentals, there's a shortage of rental apartment buildings, apparently because the city restricts their construction and height. And then they wonder why people move out of town as their families grow - SF has one of the lowest proportions of households with small children of any city in the nation.