[souprock]

This is way off target: "the kinds of neighborhoods that permanently reduce total driving"

People change jobs without changing where they live. It won't matter what kind of neighborhood a person lives in if the person still commutes a long distance.

Transaction costs are high. For a dense city, moving to a different apartment means losing rent control. Elsewhere, the process of selling and buying a house will eat up about 10% the value of the house. Switching kids to different school districts is often unacceptable.

The typical modern two-income household makes this far worse. Moving close to one employer just means moving away from the other employer. Cutting one person's commute just lengthens the other person's commute. Why bother?

[adrianN]

In Berlin about 70% of all commutes are not done by car. By having things like supermarkets and entertainment closer to your home you don't need to drive there at least.

[AstralStorm]

Rent control is amenable to government policy, as is the number of housing units built and necessary slack of free units for travel. Same with transaction issues, moving itself is cheap but can be further subsidized.

The harder problems are social - propinquity (you lose your neighbors) and schools (kids lose their friends).

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

> People change jobs without changing where they live. It won't matter what kind of neighborhood a person lives in if the person still commutes a long distance.

And it gets more complicated in two-income households. Both parties could work in completely different directions/areas

[greyface-]

Post-COVID, this might be less of an issue than it has been historically. If a person is working remotely, there is no commute, and it doesn't matter where their employer is located.