Not addressing debt. Addressing the fact that the work day is far longer when it takes longer to get to work, so a six hour workday comparison from 1936 isn't an apples-to-apples comparison.
Are you talking rural or urban environments? By that point in time the streetcar was popular, and public transportation was plentiful. You used to live near to where you worked - cars enabled us to not live close. I can't find any actual statistics, but given the awareness of our commuting times, I think commutes have gotten worse.
Back before cars, when, if you didn't live in a very dense metropolis, your commute to work was almost certainly done using an open-air conveyance such as horses or feet or donkey carts?
Yeah, I can't imagine many people would choose a 45 minute each way commute. Not unless they lived in some magical place where temperatures never drop below 15 degrees and rain only falls on weekends.
> Back before cars, when, if you didn't live in a very dense metropolis, your commute to work was almost certainly done using an open-air conveyance such as horses or feet or donkey carts?
> Yeah, I can't imagine many people would choose a 45 minute each way commute. Not unless they lived in some magical place where temperatures never drop below 15 degrees and rain only falls on weekends.
How many people actively choose their commutes today? I know many people who had moved somewhere for a job, bought a house with their spouse, and subsequently changed jobs. Once you start adding things that can tie you to a place (high-school age children, elderly parents to care for, mortgage, etc) it becomes harder to uproot yourself for the sake of one's commute.
It's easy to forget how much of an echo chamber HN can be. It seems like everyone here is a single, young, successful city dweller. It's easy to let that totally skew your world view if you don't pay attention to it.
