[exue]

The thing is we have a lot a lot of leverage on the technological side. Choosing a behavioral and societal change vs. technological is always a trade off - but for this case some things make improving the technology much easier. The median age of a car in the US is about 11 years vs. 36 years for homes. Cars are individually replaced whereas reconfiguring homes that are on fixed land is a much more difficult task. If you're asking about an individual level I agree it's a choice, and you've covered those pain points say within a metro area. However if your family is in many South/West cities - say the Houston metro area or Las Vegas, distances are going to be pretty far. Amazingly, Los Angeles actually has pretty low average miles per year - one of the lowest for metro areas.

While the technological advancement is pretty much a universal win, the behavioral change isn't, or is at least debatable/not everyone's cup of tea - a lot of Americans prefer to live in large houses with lower density neighborhoods (of course others prefer large dense cities). Many also live in rural or semi-rural areas, and the US has a lot of cheap land compared to say Western Europe. Zoning in a city is dictated by those residents. However with better technology and cheaper energy, the expense of this lifestyle will be lowered and allow more choices (similar to how remote work allows people to remove geographical limitations). If we think about developing countries, any efficiency gains will also reduce their energy impact as consumption increases