[paulmendoza]

Long commutes are mostly employees choosing to live further away from the office. I saw it often with my coworkers. They could have lived closer to the office. I got a place across the street from my office. Later we choose to move away because we wanted a bigger house.

If everyone moved within 3 miles of their office it would massively cleanup the traffic commute situation. But we build huge highways which subsidizes people who live far away from their offices.

[Vrondi]

Most of the time, if your employer is in town, housing there costs a lot more for a lot less (or the same) space. Many people cannot afford to double or triple (or more) their housing cost in order to live in town close to their work. Employers aren't willing to pay you more if you live closer to work in order to compensate you for this increase in costs. And then, there's no guarantee that this job you've arranged your life around will be permanent or career-long, so why do it? Why increase your rent or mortgage immensely to use more of the identical paycheck for a decreased standard of living with no guarantees of employment stability? And that's before we consider any other factors like where the better schools/less violent areas/etc. might be for raising children.

[cafard]

We knew a family in a close-in suburb of Washington, DC, about a mile outside the Beltway. Both parents worked for the EPA at White Oak, perhaps three miles from their house. Then the government reshuffled, and that part of the EPA ended up in Crystal City, Virginia, may twelve miles away, but a much longer commute.

This kind of thing happens to people a lot. My wife's then employer moved from downtown Washington to Rosslyn, Virginia--not a great difference in distance, but a worse commute. [Edit] I should add that this employer then moved back to Washington, DC. The Rosslyn location had the merit of being close to a Metro station, the new location was a mile or more from one.

[gvurrdon]

I’m reminded of a previous house move. A two-bedroom flat 20 miles from work was £125k, and one within a mile, but otherwise similar, was about £350k. I could barely afford the first one.