Why does everyone claim to have an hour commute? That’s a significant outlier.
Unless you are a career beginner and living in a shared one room "paying guest" arrangement closer to office or you are upper management earning enough to afford an apartment closer to office ... you are more likely living in an affordable apartment (that still costs you your life savings and 20 year mortagage) and commuting through horrendous trafic for 2-3 hours each day. This is me.
I don't have firsthand knowledge but it would surprise me to learn the big tech hubs are better.
The vast majority of Americans live in suburbs and the door-to-door from their suburban rancher to the office by car is 15-20 minutes.
If, in the United States, your commute is over one hour you are an extreme outlier in the "wtf are you thinking?" direction.
1. Wanted to buy a house (everywhere closer is either a ghetto or 100k+ more and usually both).
2. Not going to spend 6 additional months job hunting to micro-optimize commute.
In a post-pandemic world the "what they were thinking" may well have been that had 2 years when they weren't permitted to work in an office, and made decisions on the basis that this would continue.
My dad moved to an entirely different city 8 hours away from where he was originally living (although in his case he checked that he would allowed to continue working remotely before moving (which he has been able to), and was close to retiring anyway).
Only the people who have long commutes are going to make comments about it, and thus every comment makes it seem like every person is saying they have an hour commute.
When in reality the people with short commutes don't comment on it.
I’ve had 3 hour commutes in Chicago suburbs too.
Austin and the Bay Area are awful too. Did all of them.
Now I live in a town where it’s no more than 15 minutes to anything.