[apsec112]

Very likely, the major reason you live so far from work is that it's illegal to build densely, and it's illegal to build houses, stores, and offices within reasonable walking distance of each other. Of course, most people don't realize that - they just look for houses near their work and don't find any, or the handful they do find are super-expensive, so they live far away and commute. But the underlying reason why these houses are super-expensive or nonexistent is that it's illegal to build more of them.

[Clubber]

My town is very spread out, I don't even work in the city. Companies commonly rent office space in the suburbs. Also, I consider 10 miles to be a very short commute and a huge perk. They've been trying to revitalize our downtown area for decades with moderate success.

If you don't live in a hot state, you don't won't know what that's like. It's funny though, shortly after rush hour, our area has packs of people riding bicycles for recreation. I'm pretty sure most of them shower before dinner.

[CalRobert]

"Also, I consider 10 miles to be a very short commute "

There's no arguing on opinions, but this shows the sheer distortion of perspective you get living in the US as opposed to most of the world.

10 miles is a ridiculously long commute if your job doesn't necessitate massive amounts of space (airport worker, etc.)

How much of that 10 miles is just asphalt? Parking, roads, garages, gas stations, slip roads, onramps, offramps, shoulders? How much of it is actual good stuff?

For what it's worth I used to live in hot places and I rode to work all the time. I changed at work when I didn't have a shower, and showered at work when I did. A few times it was over 110 F. Fortunately, my employer was supportive.

[Clubber]

It's the usual stuff: gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants, office parks.

When you had to drop your kids off to school, did you just throw them on the handlebars? What happened when you switched jobs? Did you restrict your prospective employers to a 2 mile radius, or did you just buy a new house and have two mortgages until your old house sold?

What you are saying is fine, but it only works for a select group of people (read: single). Trying to force everyone to do the same thing through punitive taxes is short sighted. There are much better ways to reduce the carbon footprint of vehicles than the just tax people who need them to get to work every day.

[CalRobert]

This could also be phrased as "parking lots for gas stations, parking lots for grocery stores, parking lots for restaurants, parking lots for office parks". Most of those businesses, in the US, are a huge lot with one building in the middle of a sea of asphalt.

Children can walk, or can indeed ride on bikes with parents (I see this now and then where I live, and much more in more cycle-friendly places). They can ride their own bikes, even, in places where drivers aren't allowed to run over cyclists and walkers with something near impunity (which sadly is most of the world). The idea that children have to be ferried around in a car has the billions of people who raise families without a car as a counterexample.

I restrict prospective employers to those within about a 5-10 mile radius of my home, or a 20 minute walk or cycle from rail, but I also am a more competent cyclist than most. At one point my employer was 12 miles away, but that was fine because there was a surprisingly good bike route (shockingly, in LA of all places). I rode down the beach from Santa Monica to El Segundo - the only thing that really made that distance worthwhile. This does contradict what I said about ten mile commutes, I realize, but then most people think ten miles is an absurd distance to cycle.

I was also fortunate enough to be at an employer affected by California's Parking Cashout law, meaning I got the cost of the parking I wasn't using in my paycheck. Not wasting my life on 405 was another big incentive.

[Clubber]

>Children can walk, or can indeed ride on bikes with parents

So children should walk to school on the highway or a busy road in LA? I don't think that's a very good solution. I think you are trying too hard to justify your idea rather than considering a better solution other than "everyone ride bikes."

LA is a very unique city. Look, if you want to wrap your life around riding your bike to work, more power to you, just don't try force your lifestyle on the entirety of the US population through punitive taxation. Also, if you don't like parking lots, don't live in a huge city. There is plenty of land in the US to live other than a big city.

I would love to buy some acreage in the middle of nowhere and remote work all day. That would solve a bunch of problems.

[CalRobert]

"So children should walk to school on the highway or a busy road in LA?"

This is a straw man argument. The whole point is that children SHOULDN'T do that, because it's horribly dangerous. However, that is exactly what any child in places with terrible infrastructure, who aren't driven or bussed, must do right now. Your argument is in favour of continuing this.

"Look, if you want to wrap your life around riding your bike to work, more power to you"

I did. It's why I don't live in the US anymore. However, most people don't have that option.

"Also, if you don't like parking lots, don't live in a huge city"

I'm not sure we agree on what a "city" is. Good ones don't have huge parking lots.

Anyway, I think it's pretty clear we've reached an impasse. Regardless, know that your car-dependent lifestyle is subsidized.

[enoch_r]

> Look, if you want to wrap your life around riding your bike to work, more power to you, just don't try force your lifestyle on the entirety of the US population through punitive taxation.

No one is talking about "punitive taxation," we are talking about eliminating subsides for driving.

This is not a stick, it's a reduction of your free monthly carrot delivery.

It's as if the government were giving massive subsidies to Angular developers. After 50 years of this the small community of React developers says "hey, um, can we eliminate those Angular subsidies someday?" and the response is "oh my god--stop this horrible social engineering! Don't try to force your lifestyle on the entirety of the US population through punitive taxation!"

[djent]

If you think 10 miles is ridiculous, imagine for a second that many Americans frequently commute 1/3rd the width of your country.

[CalRobert]

I used to be one of them. It was horrible.

[gydfi]

Or people don't like living on top of one another.

Give me a nice half-acre and a self-driving car to get me where I need to go.

[dashundchen]

The fact is not everyone can live on a half acre. The tax revenue isn't dense enough to support the infrastructure people expect (ignoring the awful environmental and land use effects that would have).

The US is seeing fiscal and infrastructure problems across the country from municipalities who spread themselves too thin the past 60 years. They don't have the funds to maintain, much less improve, their infrastructure. We need to make it easier to build denser and start thinking about how to develop more sustainably going forward.

[osdiab]

Exactly! People don't take into account how expensive it is to maintain long roads, electrical lines, water pipes, and much more to remote places; higher cost of maintenance on said infrastructure; and how most of that area doesn't produce any revenue to fund itself. Like it or not, you're receiving enormous subsidies to live that way, and if you had to pay the true costs of your lifestyle, you might reconsider how idyllic it really is.

[Dagwoodie]

Buying my first house gave me a high similar to some pain killers. Well, not literally, but it was so awesome having more space, more privacy, generally better neighbors and the ability to play music as loud as I want. I can also customize the interior any way I see fit. The thought of moving back into an apartment or condo is very depressing indeed.

In the end, people will keep trying to sell others on their own preferences, which is very much a nurture thing. If you grew up in the city, you're going to prefer the city. If you didn't, you probably won't enjoy living in the middle of downtown without a car. In fact, that prospect is extremely depressing and I'd honestly rather be dead myself than not have a car.

[xtreme]

> If you grew up in the city, you're going to prefer the city. If you didn't, you probably won't enjoy living in the middle of downtown without a car.

I agree with you on everything except this one. Going by this thread, the trend seems to be opposite - a lot of HNers who grew up in "boring" suburbs and enjoy the city life, and a few (like me) who grew up in cities and now prefer more open spaces.

[pharrlax]

Great, fine, you can have that if you want it. But no one's trying to make that illegal. On the flip side, dense housing and tight residential-commercial zoning is illegal in most places.

[emiliobumachar]

No one is proposing forbidding your nice half-acre, just allowing the rest of us to live on top of one another if we so choose.

[ant6n]

More likely next to one another.

Also, it would be nice if those half-acre folks were forced to pay the true cost of their decadence. Right now there's a tendency that denser areas get extra-punished with taxes, even though services are theoretically cheaper to provide.

[emiliobumachar]

I think "living on top of one another" is a fair, if crude, description of life in multi-family apartment buildings. It's my current situation and I wouldn't trade it for a house, but it does have downsides.

"Decadence", on the other hand, really seems like name-calling. Let's not do that.

As for the tax situation, that seems interesting. Could you provide more detail? I'm in Brazil, here there's the rural area, that's taxed much more lightly but has less services, and everything in the urban area gets taxed the same percentage of assumed property value, regardless of density. How's it like where you live, and what would you propose to change?

[oftenwrong]

The idiom "on top of one another" means very crowded or close. Not actually on top of one another, although in this case it could be meant literally.