A class of people unable to afford a home sounds like a societal problem.
While some metropolises such as Tokyo seem to be set up well for providing housing at a wide range of price points, others such as the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles do a much worse job; there are some people who regularly commute 2-3 hours each way from these metro areas because this is all they can afford, yet the job markets in the Central Valley (near the Bay Area) or the Inland Empire and Antelope Valley (both near Los Angeles) areas are rather anemic at best. For many of these people, the choice isn't between a condo in Fremont versus a single-family house in Tracy. Instead, it's an apartment in a place like Stockton or Modesto versus moving outside of the orbit of the Bay Area; that's how bad the housing crisis has gotten for many people.
The chief cause of this is zoning regulations and other policies in the Bay Area and Los Angeles that discourage denser development, thus encouraging sprawl further and further out; hence, the "drive until you qualify" phenomenon. The normalization of mega-commuting has social and environmental consequences.
Yes, there are cheaper metro areas, but these cheaper metro areas tend to offer fewer job opportunities compared to the more popular metro areas. Part of what fueled the social divide between "blue state" and "red state" America is economic opportunity being increasingly concentrated in a handful of coastal metro areas, while these opportunities have largely failed to trickle down to much of rural America and the Rust Belt.
What's needed are two solutions: 1. Change the zoning policies of certain metro areas in order to accommodate the demand through densification instead of sprawl. 2. Find ways to encourage the economic development of areas outside of the coasts.
> there are some people who regularly commute 2-3 hours each way from these metro areas because this is all they can afford, yet the job markets in the Central Valley (near the Bay Area) or the Inland Empire and Antelope Valley (both near Los Angeles) areas are rather anemic at best.
Just move. If you don’t, I find it hard to be sympathetic. Family w/e you can make it work. This is peak American bullshit to drive 2 hours each way to work and if you are putting up with that it’s on you.
I don't mind doing a long commute once or twice a week, especially when I have flexible work hours, but anything more often than that becomes draining.
Disclaimer: I grew up poor and I have relatives who lived in public housing; the environments they lived in were very rough, not only in terms of the quality of housing, but also in terms of living in crime-ridden neighborhoods. Now, I'm not saying that public housing has to be that way; I've heard good things about Singapore's public housing.
The only thing that Americans might hate about it is that they are universally 30 story concrete apartment buildings that Singapore is selling to its citizens at affordable costs. If you want detached, that is the private market and will cost a lot.
Maybe an "opportunity" that doesn't provide a living wage isn't actually an opportunity at all?
- The Amtrak San Joaquins train (https://www.amtrak.com/san-joaquins-train) connects Stockton with Richmond, where passengers can transfer to BART.
- For those headed to Silicon Valley, the Altamont Commuter Express runs from Stockton to San Jose (https://acerail.com)
I'm looking forward to the California High Speed Rail project being completed. This will make a commute from places like Merced, Madera, and Fresno much more feasible. Currently it's possible to drive from San Jose to Fresno in less than three hours; the bullet train will likely cut the duration of this trip by half.
I agree with you; it would be nice to see some nice transit-oriented developments spring up around train stations in the Central Valley.
(at least in my experience of like everyone I know).
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/digpub/housing/bloc-1a.h...