Originally Posted by
FiftySix
IMO, the distance needs to be measured in time not miles. The article in the first post touches on this.
"In the biggest cities, the radius from downtown accessible within an hour—generally considered the limit for daily commuting—by transit was fully developed by World War II. Cars dramatically extended that radius, and made it very hard for conventional transit to compete."
So, 1 hour on average by foot, bicycle, transit, or car. I don't know many that will walk or bike an hour one way to work, though.
Edit to add:
Back in my youth (20 y.o.), when my 400cc motorcycle wasn't running, I would walk to the nearest bus stop and take a bus to work. The walk and bus ride would take at least 90 minutes.
When my motorcycle was running, I could make the trip to work in 30 minutes.
The distance was only 13 miles. Clearly, I would have never taken that job if I had not owned motorized transportation.
You're understanding this question wrong.
What I'm saying is that if a person lives somewhere and they can find an opportunity, ANY opportunity, within reasonable walking/biking/transit distance, then you could say LCF is a reasonable option. They might have to work in a convenient store or fast food restaurant and they would have no other options or prospect for career advancement, but if the workplace was within a couple miles, then they could walk/bike to work and back.
Now, they'd also have to be able to do shopping without a car for LCF to be a viable lifestyle.
If the nearest job or shopping is more than a half-hour by bike/transit, I would say it's almost prohibitive. I think that if it takes people an hour to drive to work, that area needs serious reform to bring people and work closer together, which could also mean reducing total driving traffic and replacing it with other modes.