David Brooks in today’s NYT:
If the relationship between money and well-being is complicated, the correspondence between personal relationships and happiness is not. The daily activities most associated with happiness are sex, socializing after work and having dinner with others. The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting.
Some people can’t afford to live closer to where they work, I realize, and many people change jobs frequently and they can’t exactly move—which is expensive—every time they land a new gig. And both halves of a couple usually have to work to make ends meet and and the odds that both partners offices or workplaces will be in roughly in the same part of town are slim. But I’ll never understand why so many people who do have the option of living closer to work nevertheless choose long, injurious-to-happiness commutes over apartments or homes nearer—ideally within walking distance—of their places of employment.
You might have to sacrifice a little private space—you’ll live in a smaller home—or live with a slightly smaller yard or no yard at all. But the time and money you save, to say nothing of the aggravating commute you avoid, more than compensates for those losses. And since living closer to work typically means living in a denser, more urban environment, those slightly less spacious homes are closer to the kinds of public spaces—bars, restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores, parks—that come to feel like additional personal, if not private, space.
And, yes, you do have to buy something if you’re going to sit in a bar or a coffee shop—that’s what you do with some of the money you’re saving on gas.
I worked for 5 years in Hillsboro and there was no way in hell I was moving out of the city to live on one of those monstrous apartment complexes. I stayed in the city. And during that time I took care of my disabled mother, so it made sense for me to live on Belmont while she lived in Sellwood.
Currently I travel for work but always stay within Multnomah County. I rarely have to drive more than 15 minutes because my place is centrally located.
I refuse to move for my job. I’ve had lots of jobs in the suburbs. The assumption that the jobs are in urban cores ignores the whole suburban office complex phenomenon.
Please get me away from Beaverton!!!!!!
I love you Dan. I’ve been reading your column longer than I haven’t been (sorry to make you feel old) and I live close enough to bike to work, and I specifically chose where I live for that, and not commuting is very, very important to me and all that, but:
This has got to be the most condescending thing you’ve ever written. Do you think people in the suburbs just live there unthinkingly, and drive glass-eyed and cattle-like 30 miles to work each way because they’re too fucking stupid to prioritize properly (i.e. to your priorities) and realize how awesome city living is?
Like towchick said, jobs in Portland metro have been moving outwards, not inwards.
Dan lives on Vashon Island and has to take a ferry to work everyday. While riding a ferry sounds delightful, it still means a long commute and is compounded by being forced to accomodate the ferry schedule. Hypocritical?
“Commuting Makes People Miserable”
Gee, ya think?
I ditched owning a car back in early 2008 and haven’t looked back. Commuting was eating away at my soul. I have a very good feeling a good reason why so many people are so grumpy all the time is because they spend hours of their lives everyday spent stuck in traffic.
Ditch your car. It takes about two months to get used to. Once you’re through that, you’ll never be happier. It’s extremely easy to do in Portland. I use a mixture of pedestrian, bicycle, Trimet, and Zipcar (for those rare occasions I absolutely need a car).
If you don’t believe me, try it!
And just think, while you watch everyone else sitting in traffic day-in, day-out, burning gas ($$$), you can happily know that you’re not sitting…you’re walking or cycling and burning calories instead of money!
Agreed CC-this post annoys me greatly. Half my friends live in the city and commute to suburbs. Dan lives on Vashon? How about all the resources that are wasted taking a freakin’ ferry to work? But we all know Dan does not read the Merc comments.
Actually Dan does NOT live on Vashon, and hasn’t for years, but thanks for playing.
But, it’s true that SOME people have never lived in an urban environment and therefore can’t possibly fathom not have a big house and a yard. I’ve lived in both the city and the suburbs. I’ll tell you that I don’t like maintaining my suburban yard but I live 2.5 miles from work. There is so much more I’d rather do with my time than yard work and home maintenance. I’m a weekend urbanite as much as I can be. Now, if I can only get a MAX line running up and down I-5, I’ll be golden. Sitting in a car in traffic really IS hell. I would much rather read on a train.
A couple of years ago I bailed on my 7-mile round trip daily bike commute from NE to the Pearl District and took a job just 1.5 miles from my house– my home and work now share a zip code. I thought it would be great, but it’s boring as hell.
My bike commute used to be the thing I looked forward to most (unless it was pissing rain in the winter, of course, though I still rode). Now my commute is dull, mostly residential, and doesn’t cross even ONE amazing bridge into a downtown core full of busy people and awesome lunch carts.
I miss my old commute. Sure, it wasn’t anything like being stuck in a car for two hours a day en route to Beaverton or Tigard or something– but this is still case of a shortened commute resulting in less happiness. I’m stranded in the neighborhood. It barely feels like I live in Portland.
I wanted to judge Dan WSH and you ruined it all with facts! Tyrant!
Geez…I had a bus pass for years while I was in school, and I HATED it. Waiting in the rain and the snow for a bus that’s always way late or way early, squeezing in next to strangers, hiking to and from the bus stop, getting stranded when they quit running at night. THAT was the source of stress in my life – I was so much happier when I could start driving everywhere again. Who cares about traffic? I’ve got the radio, I’ve got climate control, I’ve got my own little space. I’d rather drive two hours a day than take the bus for 30 minutes.
If I could live in a Chevy’s, I would.
By the way, Vashon is tits and typically a much faster commute to downtown than getting around anywhere else in that damn, traffic-clogged town.
This kind of blanket statement about what lifestyle (transit or otherwise) makes people miserable or happy is ridiculous. Poor form Dan.
“Do you think people in the suburbs just live there unthinkingly, and drive glass-eyed and cattle-like 30 miles to work each way because they’re too fucking stupid to prioritize properly (i.e. to your priorities) and realize how awesome city living is?”
Actually, I’ve known personally several people for whom this is undoubtedly true. Too frightened of change to try something different, raised in the ‘burbs, they’d rather stick with the misery they already know.
“Who cares about traffic? I’ve got the radio, I’ve got climate control, I’ve got my own little space.” Exactly. Driving is so alienating. We imagine the freedom of the road but really we lock ourselves in mobile boxes away from everyone else and in fact in direct competition with them. The only way my commute from Seattle to the Eastside was bearable was because I was doing it with other people, though I still harbor the traces of road rage from that year. Having my car stolen and totaled was one of the best things that ever happened to me. After years of living without it, I have finally realized that instead of trying to get from here to there all the time, it is okay to just exist here, as it is, now.
Commuting does make me miserable, but living in Hillsboro would make me more so.
I lived in the city’s core from age 18 to 32. Then I decided that I wouldn’t commute. I wouldn’t waste the time or resources or frustrate myself in traffic, so I moved close to my job. Now I work near Nike, so I live in the west side suburbs. I have plenty of friends laugh to find out I live out here, but once they get out to my place, they stop laughing. Huge trees, huge garden, many chickens, great fire pit, and the best tacos in the region within walking distance. It’s diverse (Asians and Mexicans are my neighbors) and responsible for me to live here.
So, while I choose to not commute, and it means I live in the ‘burbs now, I have gotten more than what I gave up. Having children helps make this more palatable, but everything pretty much applies either way. (And my kids are home-schooled, so we aint out here to run away from urban public schools…)
I laughed at people who lived in the ‘burbs when I was in my 20s too… but it turns out I didn’t see the whole picture. I just thought they were afraid of urban living. I now see that is often bullsh!t.