Extreme Commuting

Yesterday I read this article in BusinessWeek (via No Impact Man) and it really brought into contrast some of the madness we've all seen in the past few decades - ever expanding cities, suburbs turning into exurbs as rural townships are blanketed with prefab bedroom community developments and big box 'villages'. As people crave larger houses, more land, and safer communities, they are forced farther from the cities where they must work. They spend more time in cars, their children spend more time in schools and daycares, and no one spends time in their neighborhoods. The BusinessWeek article details the trade-offs very well, but the take home message for me is that we're willing to trade our real lives for the appearance of better ones.

The question is, what is a real life? Maybe sitting in traffic for several hours a day is as real as it gets. I hope not, and I hope the past few decades of commuter culture are an aberration, and some day we will have found more sustainable and meaningful ways to spend our lives.