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>There are people who commute for an hour, and who select a place to live knowing they'll have to commute for an hour, despite having options within 5-10 minutes. I can't even begin to fathom why someone would do that, and waste 10 hours of their life every week for years.

I am from Perth, Australia and people voluntarily driving for upwards of 30 minutes each way is extremely common with 1 hour not being all that unusual so people will happily buy a home that is distant from where they work.

Although Perth isn't huge in terms of population (~2 million) it is extremely spread out due to its very low population density. 310/km2 Vs 5354/km2 for London for example. Australian cities generally have a low density, Melbourne is 430/km2, but Perth is at the low end of the low end.

Most Perth people have never lived anywhere else so they grow up assuming that being in the car for 20-40 minutes to get anywhere is common and that a 1 hour drive to work isn't particularly bad. At a company I worked at there was someone who had a 2 hour commute. That is very definitely at the very high end and he actually lived outside of the city and drove in every day but let that sink in a little. 4 hours a day in the car.

This is, in my opinion, part of the reason why Perth people who experience living elsewhere rarely return to live in Perth. Some return after some time elsewhere but typically they leave for good after another year or two. Once you have acclimatized to having a <20 minute commute, especially if its by public transport or walking, the notion of paying a bunch of money to buy a car so you can sit in traffic for 20-60 minute each way every day is profoundly unattractive.

Infill also mean's Perth's roads are far busier than before. My dad commuted from Bateman to Fremantle for 30 years; the same morning journey easily takes twice as long as it used to.

As a Perthian living in LA I think it's interesting to note that Perth has about the same area as Greater LA (minus San Bernardino and Riverside counties) yet Perth has 1/9th of the population (2 million vs 18 million).

Commuting in LA is rougher than Perth due to the traffic but Perth's low density means that people often travel further to find the same variety of amenities.

>I am from Perth, Australia and people voluntarily driving for upwards of 30 minutes each way is extremely common with 1 hour not being all that unusual

That's common in the US too... The average commute to work in the US is 25 minutes each way. And 1 in 12 people spend 1 hour or more each way.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/05/c...

I'm that person. For me it's all about cost. I rent a room in a house in the suburbs for $400mo where if I wanted to live in the city where I work it would cost me around $1k. I don't make a lot of money so even though my time is valuable, it isn't helping my bank account. Until I get a better job it just isn't an option to move into the city.

That's what I meant when I said "despite having options within 5-10 minutes"; I very much meant "viable options within their price range". When you're constrained by cost, you may have to trade time for money.

Some people don't have great options about where they work. I personally would not move close to downtown LA if I worked there. I'm more comfortable in a safe suburb, but the good jobs are in Santa Monica.

At one point, I drove about 80 minutes to my University and about 60 minutes back to work, which was by my home. If I got lucky and there was no traffic (rare), it was 45 minutes. You get used to it, but it's not something one should get used to.

Even now, I live 2 minutes from work. In traffic, it's 15 minutes. You can't avoid traffic in LA. There needs to be a better public option.

Sounds like California and its traffic might be a large part of the problem.

They're certainly related.

If the economy has any rightness in it at all, it has shown us that California is valuable. People put up with all manner of hardship just to carry out their lives in that location.

Traffic is an effect of that value. Of course, people are not perfectly mobile, and many things tie people to particular geographies and commutes; but in general people still move to California and prioritize the value of the location over commute time.