well. all post are awesome on this thread. I had a japanese friend visit me one summer. He was surprised to see so few people riding their bikes or walking around. I was perplexed and asked him for more explanation. He explained that in Japan, many apartments tend to have first floor as retail/grocery. so many people choose to not have a car because they can just walk a couple blocks to buy groceries. Its different in North america, we tend to place homes far away from the retail places. For instance, Where I live, it is impractical for me to ride my bike to work because it would take me in excess of 3 hours one way. So i drive out of necessity. But my next goal is to earn enough money to live closer to my home. again, it all depend on how much you can afford to find a place closer to your work. For example, if you worked in downtown, and you wanted to have a home close by (walking distance or biking distance) most houses would be in the 3/4 million dollars or more. For me, thats too rich for my blood. So many people would prefer to live farther away because the prices of homes are cheaper. As to apartments, or condominums, the one closer to downtown are much higher, a small 1 bedroom condo would be in the stratosphere of 300,000 dollars or higher. Then again, it all comes to affordability. It is affordable to have a house/apartment that are farther from downtown core, and put up with driving a car, or put up with hours of transit trips. I usually use transit (light rail or bus) to commute to School as it is more practical to use Light rail transit. but for work, I drive because time wise, driving is shorter than light rail as well. it would take me 30 to 40 minutes driving time one way, using transit (light rail and bus) would take me a little more than 1 hour one way(barring any incidences such as break down).
P