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Comment by 2devnull | Hacker News Reader

Why should everybody get a house and not have a 2 hour commute? It was the norm for the past few decades, and so your post just reinforces the prior post, except the Roth IRA thing. You can save without an IRA.

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Yeah, everyone sitting comfortably in their big house in a nice neighborhood close to work that they got when it was reasonable to do so can now sit back and lecture others: "why do you need such an expensive house and less than two hour commute?! Just don't have kids and rent an apartment!"

The real question is why can't we get much denser housing (e.g. condos) and a smaller commute.

At least for Seattle, it seems like the liability for the builder and the costs don't really justify building for less than some un-sellable amount (e.g. $1k / sqft) [0]

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/wnkwvp/comment/i...

That is a good question. Not terribly hard to answer either. Things in America cost a lot. Labor costs a lot. Everyone needs a livable wage and good health care, even carpenters. Wood costs a lot, and it should because trees take a long time to grow and deforestation accelerates climate change. And regarding climate change, energy costs a lot and it should because if it didn’t, then there would be more even more climate change. So that’s the answer to the question of why can’t everyone own a home and not commute. It is because we care more about workers and the environment and have chosen to give those issues the highest priority. And if you don’t like that, it’s a free country; there is more affordable housing in states where people care less about workers and the environment. Ironically, many of those states are actually better places for workers and the environment, but that wasn’t the question.

If they built condos that were greater than 2000 sq ft regularly, that might be an attractive option.

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