Did thinking too much about complex decisions lead to — unhappiness and environmental ills in suburbia? In his book How We Decide, Jonah Lerer talks about how too much deliberation can lead to terrible decision-making — namely, buying a big house in the ‘burbs — and a greatly diminished quality of life.
No, this quality of life issue isn’t related to the current mortgage crisis. Lehrer notes that when people are made to pick between a 3-bedroom apartment in the city with a 10-minute commute, and a 5-bedroom in the suburbs with a 45-minute commute, many people will pick the latter to their own detriment:
What’s interesting is that the more time people spend deliberating, the more important that extra space becomes. They’ll imagine all sorts of scenarios (a big birthday party, Thanksgiving dinner, another child) that turns the suburban house into a necessity. The lengthy commute, meanwhile, will seem less and less significant.
Unfortunately, in real life, the commute’s much more significant than the extra bedroom. Lehrer quotes psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis, who says “The additional bathroom is a completely superfluous asset for at least 362 or 363 days each year, whereas a long commute does become a burden after a while.”
And Lehrer cites some dire research that show how commutes make people unhappy — one study, for example, found that people with 1-hour+ commutes have to make 40% more money in order to be as “satisfied with life” as people with shorter commutes.
Of course, all that unhappy commuting also burns a whole lot of extra fossil fuels — and those big houses in the suburbs will generally have much higher carbon footprints than more modest homes in or close to the city.
Stay happy and live closer to work — and for more insights into making happier decisions, check out How We Decide. I also highly recommend Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy (reviewed here), which, with a more eco-bent, draws some great connections between our suburban commuter culture and our general sense of isolation as individuals in contemporary society.
Earlier: Your Money or Your Life; An eco-case for renting an apartment in the city
Update, 5/13/09: An Anti-capitalist video guide to happiness
Update, 5/11/09: Today’s biggest eco-threat: Cul-de-sacs
Update, 5/18/09: Get naked, or get angry — for a better commute
We are currently looking for a smaller appartement downtown Uppsala for this reason – commuting steals at least 40 min from our life every day. That’s more than three hours a week we could have used for better things at home.
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Comment by Rosengeranium (Indoor Gardener) — April 13, 2009 @ 11:58 am
One of the big issues I don’t see you address, and maybe this is addressed in the book, is the high number of households where both adults work in today’s society. This complicates the situation greatly. Who gets to live closer to work? Does someone have to quit their job of 5+ years simply to move to a new home when the other partner loses a job and finds a new one in another job center? It is maybe a bit easier for a single person to make this decision than for a couple or a couple with children. This also becomes a bigger issue if someone or both in the relationship are trying to live a car-free lifestyle. This might also not be as much of an issue in a city where there is a single primary job center for a given field opposed to LA where there are clusters of jobs spread 10-30 miles from one another.
While it’s a nice idea, I can speak from personal experience that making these sorts of decisions aren’t easy. I’d love to have a 10 minute commute, a garden and continue to not own a car, but thanks to how LA is arranged, it is pretty much impossible for that to happen unless I break up with my boyfriend and find the most ideal little apartment in Pasadena ever imagined with outdoor space. When reality slaps me in the face, I have to consider the fact that housing near my work is pretty expensive or super shady, I am pretty limited to working in certain areas or deciding to trap myself in certain cities and pretty much never leaving if I don’t want a car and a large percentage of the apartment buildings in LA won’t let me have my pets because the owners are weirded out by tiny, quiet ideal apartment pets that are non-traditional.
Comment by M — April 13, 2009 @ 12:20 pm
i love this post. while i’m freelance & can’t really determine where i work, we are currently renting in an area where we can walk *a lot* of places. plus, i’m able to *walk to work,* which has significantly increased my quality of life. i know it won’t last forever, but i’m loving it for now.
that said, we want to buy a place, but the only places we can afford are places where we can’t walk. so, we’re staying put for now. the tax breaks and advantages to buying still aren’t out-weighing the lifestyle we love that we can afford by renting…
i’m gonna go *walk* to the library and get this book! thanks…
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Comment by christina — April 13, 2009 @ 12:23 pm
Does the book address why thinking *too much* would be a problem? Based on your quote, I only see that people opt for the larger version by default.
And then there’s the issue that in cities like L.A., living close to work is often unaffordable. (Well, at least *I* don’t have $750,000 to spend on a one-bedroom ;)
To M: You can find the occasional gem a little bit off the beaten path, though. We’ve just bought a place close to Culver City (unincorporated area, IIRC), in the middle of a 60 acre park – it’s heaven! And it was affordable. Commute is 30 minutes (yuck!), or 45 minutes via bus – which is way more enjoyable, since you can actually *use* the time.
We don’t have our own garden, but the HOA doesn’t mind us tending to a bit of the common area (as long as we keep it pretty ;)
Comment by Rachel Blum — April 13, 2009 @ 4:33 pm
I haven’t read the book either but adding to M’s comments, I also want to point out that the book doesn’t talk about how the quality of life in the suburbs is SO MUCH better than living in the city. I grew up and lived in the heart of Hollywood for 15 years when I was younger. I loved being close to everything and commuting 12 minutes one way to work.
However, now that I’m in my early 30′s and have a family, I find that living in the suburbs works much better for me. I have a sprawling 6-bedroom house, a pool and a large backyard. All 6 bedrooms are occupied so no, we did not buy a large house just for the space. And what we paid for this house wouldn’t even buy a two-bedroom fixer in Hollywood. So I got a lot more house for my money.
To contradict Lehrer, my quality of life is actually much better here in the suburbs. There is no traffic here, I can actually see the stars every night, and I live in one of the safest cities in the country. When I was 15, my dad got mugged outside our front door at 8 p.m. in the evening! We lived across the street from Paramount Pictures. That’s what living one street away from Melrose gives you — close access to everything and getting a gun stuck in your face as you walk out your front door.
Because this is a planned community, commercial complexes are just minutes away. Last Christmas, when I was doing my Christmas shopping, I had 10 stops to make and it took me just two hours to make those stops. If I was still living in Hollywood, going to those 10 stops would’ve taken me a day — if not a day and a half — because I would’ve had to drive to different cities for all the stops I had to make.
There is a large, beautiful park near me where every afternoon, three different groups of kids play sports, and it’s a nice wholesome place for me to walk with my baby girl.
Also, it’s QUIET here in the ‘burbs. I can actually hear myself think. And it’s SAFE for me to raise my baby girl here. The peace of mind that gives me is worth a 40-minute one-way commute any day.
After living in Hollywood 11 years and all its craziness, noise, pollution, pretentiousness, and bumper-to-bumper traffic, my life is ultimately much better here in the ‘burbs. And I do my part to be green. Though I have to drive 28 miles one way every day to work, I do it in a Prius. And because I have an HOV sticker, I am not stuck in freeway traffic and just breeze on home.
Books like this suck — making generalizations that do not fit every situation. For me, living in the suburbs has made my life so much better. Instead of sitting in traffic, I spend time at home with my family making and having dinner, playing board games, going out for ice cream, and taking evening walks with my husband in a beautiful environment.
By the way, that extra bathroom is HEAVEN and NOT “a completely superfluous asset” when you have a large family like mine.
Comment by Mari — April 13, 2009 @ 5:11 pm
Mari — From what I can tell from your comment, your commute isn’t as long as what the book’s talking about — or is it? How long does your commute take? In any case, if it’s less than 1 hr one way, your story doesn’t really apply to what the book’s talking about. The point is that a long commute is not a worthy tradeoff for a superfluously big house. Considering the fact that you have neither, obviously you’re not going to find this info relevant to you –
Glad you like it where you are though :)
Comment by Siel — April 13, 2009 @ 9:24 pm