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Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

You don't have to commute. You chose to commute.

You maybe did it for a larger house. Or maybe for cheaper rent/mortgage.

We're not talking here about folks on minimum wage who can only afford to live 2 hours outside of the city they are working in.

The highly paid software engineers on hackernews could absolutely afford to live 5 minutes from the office, 30 minutes from the office, or 2 hours from the office.

They could afford to move to a city with good transit where they can only afford an apartment, or to a city with no transit where they can afford a giant mansion.

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You work at offie A, your spouse works at office B. There’s 20 miles between them. How do you avoid the commute?

Well, for one thing only _one_ of you needs to commute.

Secondly, you can work towards a situation where you don't have that commute, or it's cheap / clean / easy / you don't lose all the time. Spoiler: live on a trainline or buy a bicycle.

Third, I don't believe this is the main reason for commuting. I think it's because people want to live in one place and work in another, which is usually a bad idea - especially for the environment. It irks me when I choose to live reasonably close to work so I don't need to burn fossil fuels to get there, and then people driving their cars to and from some village complain about their commute whilst I have to suffer the air pollution from their vehicles.

I totally get that for some transitional periods a long commute may be required, but I don't know a single person who couldn't make their commute a 20min walk or by public transport if they moved or switched jobs.

> people want to live in one place and work in another, which is usually a bad idea

do you suggest moving every time you change jobs? I suppose that can be done as a single person or a couple, but moving homes every 4-6 years with children who have to change schools, etc is (I'm sorry) an insane proposition.

I suspect they don't have children, as finding a suitable and affordable family home in the city is also incredibly hard.

If you are single and can just up sticks from one apartment to another then yeah, it's pretty trivial.

> do you suggest moving every time you change jobs?

No, just if you move to a new job that's a long journey away from your house.

> Secondly, you can work towards a situation where you don't have that commute, or it's cheap / clean / easy / you don't lose all the time. Spoiler: live on a trainline or buy a bicycle.

Does "commuting" only mean "driving in a privately owned car" where you are based? I'd consider travelling by rail, bus or bicycle to also be commuting.

Depends, often commuting is seen as this long, arduous thing to get to work. When I was going to the office, it was a 15 minute bike ride along canals. Technically a commute, but it doesn't feel like it, and it doesn't take a significant amount of my day. Really, it's a nice small amount of being outside and getting a little exercise and was kinda relaxing, so a net positive.

I guess it's an American idea about commuting being a 4 hour journey sat alone in your 5-seat car on a 6-lane freeway.

The word commute literally comes from ticket prices being commuted for regular travellers (holder of a commutation ticket)

I.e public transport

Sorry I was unclear, yes I meant if you want to recover the time, take public transport.

Please remember that not everybody here works for FAANG or similar companies.

None the less people do seem to make poor decisions when it comes to commuting.

This comment suggests you are from a generation where there was a choice

Mostly it comes from having made poor decisions in the past.

There is always a choice. Ten more miles equals one extra bedroom and so on.

Which generation doesn't have a choice? I'm a millenial and don't understand if this generalization is at me, genx, boomers or those damn new kids the zoomers. When I bought a house I was able to buy anything that was on sale and fit my budget except for retirement communities with a 55+ age restriction

> You don't have to commute. You chose to commute.

Are you suggesting people live at the office?

No: close by. As in : within 30 minutes of (electric) biking distance.

So... within commuting distance?

That's just bulls... People have a live besides work. Kids, family, spouses, hobbies, ... a lot of things have an influence where people can realistically live.

And furthermore, even if everyone was that free-roaming, only-working, highly-paid software developer you seem to consider average, still there wouldn't be enough living space really close to many offices for all employees.

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