alt Hacker News> the commute times end up being about the same if you ever have to leave your immediate community
People routinely leave their community for their job all the time here. Go take a look at that map I shared earlier. Most of the people in that neighborhood probably don't work in Princeton. They probably don't even work in McKinney or Fairview. Good chance they work in North Plano, Frisco, Addison, Dallas, maybe Garland. Most people living here are probably driving about an hour to their job, each way, every day. With a lot of those people with those kinds of commutes having that take place on a tollway.
They do that because they can buy that 4-bedroom 3-bath 3-car garage ~2,400sqft with a gameroom house on its own lot for $375k. Meanwhile, a similar house within a few miles of their work (say, Frisco) is probably anywhere from $590k to $2M. Property taxes can be pretty steep here, so that $590k house gets like $14k/yr in property taxes in Frisco while that $375k house in Princeton is only $9k/yr, over $400/mo in additional taxes. They could potentially accept a smaller and thus cheaper house, but to them it's not worth the tradeoff. They need that 3-car garage, they need that gameroom.
My wife has coworkers who live in Forney and commute to jobs in Plano and Frisco. They do that commute 3-5 times a week and see nothing wrong with it. They value having a large home with tons of space, and with the kind of income they make there's little chance they could afford it anywhere near where those jobs are. Think a security guard and a building engineer (like an on-site maintenance tech for a commercial property) are going to own a $1M+ house? No. But they still want a 3 bedroom home with a pool and a spa and an outdoor kitchen, and they can get that for $300k in Forney.
Just trying to share the follow on mindset. If you're having to leave your home by car every day for work, then you're absolutely going to have a car. If you already have the car, why go to the little grocery store at the edge of the neighborhood when you just spend a little more transit time and go to the big store that has everything else you'd want to buy?
> People routinely leave their community for their job all the time here.
Sure, where the compensation is sufficient to cover your travel costs you would reasonably consider it. But then transportation costs aren't an issue, making the unaffordability idea that started this moot. But, if we want to move beyond the topic of cost, that just brings us right back to the point that travel time ends up being the same living in the city and living in the country, so what have you gained by living in the city?
What one normally thinks you would gain is having other amenities, like bars, restaurants, healthcare, shopping, and just an all round vibrant community right there to enjoy when you get home from work. But the particular city homes we are talking about don't even have that. They are just houses upon houses upon houses all jammed up against each other with nothing in-between.
And it is that way because people want it to be that way. They don't want the restaurants, shopping, healthcare, etc. to be anywhere nearby. Even though they cry that they afford to the transportation to get to them, funnily enough. But why? What compels one to be tripping over their neighbour, but at the same time not wanting to engage in a community with them?