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Comment by sethhochberg | Hacker News Reader

I'm also currently in NYC, as a native of FL, and I've often considered moving to LA (but I work remote, so my commute isn't much of a concern).

Do you think there is something about LA, though, which makes people there more willing to drive those extreme distances for work, instead of just moving closer? I understand LA County to be a relatively loose collection of independent communities, anchored around the city.

I hear a 120 minute commute and I'm thinking almost like a Tampa -> Orlando commute, or a West Palm Beach -> Miami commute - which I know some people do, but its not nearly as "normal" in FL to make that kind of extreme drive, and I'm certain it isn't because Tampa somehow provides more and better opportunities than, say, Burbank on its own, or Long Beach on its own, does.

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which makes people there more willing to drive those extreme distances for work, instead of just moving closer

It's frequently very difficult. "Closer" may mean "way out of budget," and it's hard to build anything, anywhere in LA: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/a-tale-o... . Large parts of it are single-family houses, which tend to be purchase-only, and that can make moving around prohibitively expensive. My Dad currently lives in Santa Monica, and building anything in Santa Monica is wildly hard. Even near the soon-to-be-completed light rail station I think the maximum height is 65 feet (!). It should be at least 450 feet. Santa Monica has had the same population since 1960: http://www01.smgov.net/business/demographics/2006population.... while the U.S. has more than doubled in size.

Many people probably also underestimate how bad commuting is: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/16/there-and-back-... .

As a longtime (but not current) resident of Los Angeles, merely growing up in traffic very effectively desensitized me to the misery of long commute times. To the degree that the natives have factored in sunk time in the car, a lot of what you see is adaptation to circumstance.

Also, housing prices in LA preclude lots of folks from moving closer to work despite the commute pain. I'd expect that's the biggest reason. I had a history teacher in high school who commuted from Lancaster to the San Fernando Valley every day.

Interestingly, I find traffic in my present domicile of Boston unbearable, but regular trips back to LA don't inspire the same sort of feelings despite the average commute time and distance being longer while I am in California. I guess you just get used to conditions in a location and don't carry those expectations to different places.

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