Suburban life in California makes political involvement difficult.

[SoCalDem]

This is a typical schedule of LOTS of people in Southern California...

3:30 AM...alarm goes off
4:00 AM...husband heads for freeway (commutes of 80-100 mi each way are common)
6:30 AM...other alarm goes off..Mom gets up ..showers, dresses, wakes kids
7:30 AM...kids are either driven to school or leave on the bus
7:45 AM...Mom finishes getting ready for her local job
3:00 PM...Kids get home from school...go to sitter's house or home alone
5:45 PM...Mom gets home..starts "household chores", helps with homework, may do "office homework", prepares dinner for kids..
7:00 PM...Dad gets home...eats "held warm" dinner , plays with kids for a few minutes, falls asleep in chair in front of tv
8:00 PM...Mom gets kids ready for bed, lays out school clothes, does dinner dishes, wakes husband and sends him off to bed
9:00 PM...Mom finishes laundry, picks up toys, and "kid-litter"..
10:00pm...ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE..

Weekends are usually relegated to grocery shopping, yard work, car duties,taking kids places, heavy housework..

In lots of houses, the TV is on as background noise, but other than a few "never miss" shows, most parents never even SEE the local or national news out here.. They get home too late..

Lots of Moms also make long commutes.. The local jobs are hard tyo find and usually low pay.. If Mom has a long commute, you can see the havoc it creates for any semblance of "family life"..

If there is no "Dad", you can just imagine the nightmare scenario..

People are so hammered by their schedules, that they hardly have time to even see each other..

For a 3 year period, I headed east at 3:30 AM , drove 67 miles each way...6 days a week.... My husband headed west at 4:40 AM 70 miles each way..... I had to go to bed by 8 pm, and he usually got home around 6:30 or 7.. Sometimes we just left notes on the microwave for days at a time.. Our kids were older by then, but I hated the fact that we had no TIME.. I would get home from work around noon, and try to catch a nap... I was home when the kids got home, but I was zombified.. I managed to get them to soccer practice and to their friends' houses, and took them places they needed to go, but I was TIRED all the time..

There are MILLIONS of people just like us.. They don't know about the political crap going on because they do not have the energy or time to even find out.. To them it's just another chore to add to the list.. Most people do not even read the paper.. The news they get is delivered through the car radio (and we all know who "owns" those airwaves)

It takes a galvanizing moment to make them wake up.. People are starting to wake up, but it's not easy to get their attention..

[iconoclastic cat]

1. A question: What's with the long commute?

What necessitates that horrible trek? Don't people just move closer?

[SoCalDem]

3. Housing prices are out of sight.

The further away you live from the jobs, the more affordable the house..

Incomes have not kept pace with housing..

People hate to pay rent when the same money can build equity, so they try to buy a house..and the school districts are usually better in suburban areas..

Out here, if you have pets or kids, or both, your rent is high.. We rented for a year before we bought our house out here.. We had to pay 1st and last month.. a $500 deposit for our ancient declawed cat (yeh..I know.. I would never do it again), and $ 1000 deposit because we had 3 kids..Our rent in 1980 was $850 a month..

Just to rent the place we had to come up with $3200.00, and that was for a small house in Corona.. Now, a 2 bedroom apartment there can run as much as 1500 a month..

The actual distance is not the problem.. It's the "move two feet...stop..move two feet stop..move two feet stop" nature of the commute..

[The empressof all]

2. Not just So California anymore

I know many folks here in PNW and back in NY who need to live this way. I did it my self in a very modified version for about 3 years and it almost killed me. The very saddest part of all is the acceptance that this kind of life is normal. It is just what must be done to own a house for many. I am not sure about people waking up yet-and even if they do, I worry they will be too exhausted to do anything about it.

[SoCalDem]

4. My son lives in Kent, and he says the traffic there is almost as bad

as what we have here.. Sometimes progress sucks..

[The empressof all]

5. Traffic here sucks-in Seattle

The I-5 I-405 corridor is a parking lot during rush hour. When I was commuting it took me about 30 minutes just to get to the free-way then another 45 to get to work about 8 exits down. (I am in the boonies of Snohomish Co)

I have several family members who commute from PA to jobs in NY or from the Jersey shore area to North Jersey or NY. To me that is just plain crazy. Not only do they have to sit in traffic they have to pay for it with all those tolls.

[progressivebydesign]

21. I'm in Gig Harbor, WA

My husband landed a job here, four miles from the house. There is a large bridge separating us from Tacoma, Seattle, and most jobs. It's a nightmarish commute... but a damn lovely place to live. Now.. he's home in 8 minutes, home for lunch, etc. He could make more on the other side of the Sound, but the lack of commute time makes up for it.

I grew up in L.A. the traffic in the Seattle area is absolutely not worse than L.A. The only thing that makes the Seattle/Tacoma area commutes so bad is the geography of the area. All that water! Ferry this, bridge that, you can't work the side streets as well as L.A... and there is NO lateral movement to the traffic East to West. The 405 is a great idea, but they overbuilt the area. I would think that Mr. Gates, with all his billions, would kick in to help the traffic woes in that area, since his company is what spurred the explosion of people in that area.

I am totally familiar with people who drive in SO. California, from places like Fontana, Rancho Cucamunga, etc... You drive two hours a day to a job so you can live in a town with smog and no trees.. just to own a home. It's not worth it to me.. quality of life is more important.

[Jazzgirl]

23. Cali, I feel your pain.

I travel a lot with my job and have spent a fair amount of time in Seattle and the L.A. area. It sucks moving around in both and I live in the DFW area! Seattle is bound by the water and L.A. is bound by all the cars! I remember when they were expanding 405 but now it looks like its as bad as I-5! Whenever I go to Seattle or L.A. I am actually glad to get back to Dallas and Ft. Worth. Thats viscious!

[Saltdog]

6. All too familiar

As someone who grew up in Detroit and lived in Seattle, these stories are all too familiar. My wife had a 90 minute commute to go 17 miles. I had a cross sound commute from Lynnwood to Port Orchard of about 2 hours each way.

Since then, my wife and I moved to Lincoln Nebraska. It doesn't take more than 20 minutes to get anywhere and our house cost about 1/3 what it would have cost in Seattle. The only problem is the lack of oppportunities.

In any smaller city (Lincoln is about 225,000 people), there just isn't the sort of diversity in workforce that you have in larger cities. There are only a few big employers and most jobs go to people who were born here, educated here, and will die here.

In big cities, people end up killing themselves to live in the suburbs. Suburban housing is larger, cleaner, and safer than urban housing of the same price. However, all other costs other than purchase price are not taken into account in that equation. This is how people end up spending their lives for a house. The sad thing is, the average family moves once every five years and they mortgage their new home purchase with a new 30 year mortgage every time they move. Virtually no one every actually pays off the houses that they buy. It becomes a merry-go-round of renting houses.

My wife and I are now considering moving back to a larger city, but if we do, we are planning on living downtown in a highrise. The cost of vehicles, lost time commuting, and lost time for each other is worth far more to us than a few extra square feet of residential space.

Besides, we don't want our lives to be spent enriching a handful of already wealthy land developers, bankers, and real estate agents. We want time to do what is important to us, even if it means living in a small apartment.

[SoCalDem]

7. Good for you.. The sad thing is that the only "people" who spend any time

in the house are the pets... People have no free time to even enjoy the houses.. We live in the same crappy house we bought in 1981.. I hate it, but it's a pain in the ass to move,so we are still here.. At least our house is worth more than we still owe on it.and eventually we will probably sell it.. It;s too big now.. there are only two of us here in a 4 BR house..

I guess when one of us croaks, the one left standing will sell it and move to a smaller place..

We cannot rent though, because we have all these silly cats :)

[Saltdog]

9. How many cats do you have?

We have two and might even get a dog down the road. I'll grant you that housing choices are limited by pets, but they add so much to life, I cannot imagine living without animals.

Besides, if you've ever been to NYC, then you've seen all the dogs everywhere. I'm sure they aren't being walked into the city from Queens. There are places that accept pets, it's just that you cannot go overboard (even though I know cats are like potato chips, you can't have just one).

[SoCalDem]

11. Too many....

It started with one little stray.. we had her for 4 years..she was the only cat.. then a pregnant stray joined us, and we ended up keeping one of her kittens...

fast forward 3 years.. a different stray decided to have kittens in our yard and she pushed one little wrtech out of the nest because he was dying.. I scooped him up and spent hundreds of dollars getting him well, and then there were FOUR...

His sister depposited 5 kittens "easter-egg style" all ove the yard and I bottlefed the whole litter.. we fell in love with 3.... then there were SEVEN...

8 months later, I bottle fed her next litter (4 of them)..found homes for all of them and after 2 weeks, a lady who had taken 2 of them,called and told me she was going to have to take them to the pound because she was allergic...so we have NINE..

The remaining 2 outdoorsies are fixed now, but we are up to "here" with cats :)


We are crazy people..:(

[The empressof all]

8. I am looking forward to downsizing.

We plan to do the condo thing closer in when my daughter graduates from High School in 4 years. In retrospect I sometimes wonder why I ever even moved out of the city. It would certainly be easier for my kid to use public transportation to get around and quite frankly it is probably no safer here in the country than down town. I think I just bought into a romantic owning the homestead kind of dream. Now, If I could figure out a way to get my SO to start getting rid of all his junk I'll be moving in the right direction. I tell him the only reason we need all this room is to store his stuff.

[seabeyond]

10. and why would i go back to work

lordy. my second child is off to first grade next year and thinking do i need to go to work, should i. i am tellin ya. if we dont have to


when i get frustrated with a friend being uniformed and think about all the stress already in their lives, yes i hear you

thanks for sharing

[Brewman_Jax]

12. Atlanta is trying to catch up

I was stationed out of Long Beach, lived in Huntington Beach 15 years ago, and it was the same then. Some of my compatriots were driving from Oxnard, Corona, Diamond Bar, even Riverside were not uncommon.

I have friends here who've moved so far away I'm losing track of them, or have morgaged the morgage to live a little closer. And the homebuilders are STILL knocking down trees and trying to pave over the place so that you can move into a brand new little crackerbox house starting at $600K.

It's beyond me, too. :silly:

[cthrumatrix]

13. TPTB would have it no other way..... no time to challnge or think

a designed ratrace

[SoCalDem]

14. No time to sleep..no time to do anything except work

It's no wonder we are stressed :(

I got off the ratrace after a spectacular meltdown in 95.. We are broker, but I am better now :)

[The empressof all]

15. I melted in October

Quit my job and have become a happy parasite. :). I think we are all far better off now even though we have had to change the life style. It gets very close some months as I was carrying the health insurance from my job. (SO is self employed)--Now we have to pay for that totally out of pocket which is a real drain. So far we are doing ok and we are all far less stressed out.

I have to tell you that although there were lots of good things about working (money, structure, daily companionship) my sense of self esteem, self worth, and overall satisfaction with life has dramatically improved since I left.

[SoCalDem]

16. My epiphany was when I almost drove into a train one morning

The car next to me honked, or I would have driven right into it.. Afterwards,my first thought was.. "Wow, I have a new car...that would have really messed it up".. That was when I realized that I had to stop, and re-evaluate things.. big time:)

[The empressof all]

18. I realized i was in trouble when

I had to check the computer in the morning to see what day it was. Really! I felt my mind had gone numb to everything but getting through the day and my biggest bliss was sleep. It is funny because most everyone not close to me would look at my life and say I had it all. Great career, great kid, great husband. Even some friends and family saw my melt down as a personal deficit---those fools! I think I just got smart and began to live life for myself instead of for what others thought I should do.

I think it is terrific both of us got it together before we became permanently defective. I know I was getting very close.

[ibegurpard]

17. That's truly horrifying and soul-sucking

I feel for you.

[Nikia]

19. How's the public transportation?

If one's place of business is near fast trains, like the "L" in Chicago, one can save time and be less stressed. If I lived in a metro area, I'd take public transportation if they had a decent system. I hate bumper to bumper traffic. I live in a rural area with decent roads instead.

[SoCalDem]

20. In CA, it's practically NONEXISTENT

There is a metrolink train in some places, but when people live so far, it doesn't work, and lots of people need their cars once they are at work..

My husband often has to go to jobsites from work,or to architects' offices..

[AlCzervik]

24. If you live near the Bay area then

you can take the BART, basically a above ground subway but thats about it, everybody drives in california.

[theoceansnerves]

30. there's actually quite a few options

public transportation systems in southern california are booming. but, if you live in the areas the poster referred to, you still don't have much of a choice. the inter-region train so far really only serves to save you the frustration of sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. it doesn't really save that much time.

[sweetheart]

22. THAT is why i left LA in 1985 for good

Nobody in my family lives in west LA /santa any more... its not
worth the cost, as you well point out.

On a visit to the big island of HI, i was informed by hotel staff
that they can always tell people from socal, as they are toxic and
generally angry... as was my experience until i finally said fuck it,
i'm outta here.

Even in new york on a 3 hour one way commute, i could read a book on
the train so it was not so bad, whereas, the 1st gear second gear
stop traffic of the 405 really was hell.

You describe the new socially engineered republican future, where
nobody has time to dissent, let alone think about it. I'm amazed
you find the energy. God bless you and your family. Its tough
and i respect a warrior soul who would put up with it.

In my life today, it is dead quiet outside, and the ocean is
breathtaking with a population density of 2 person per square km...
and it is much much much much happier for our whole family than
LA, NY, Chicago, boston, sf, or whatever socially engineered
city of exhaustion.

It is amazing the new american hubris that presumes the rest of the
world wants to live the same way. It is not a life, rather a rat
running on a treadmill to stay afloat. A rat can run a lifetime
on a treadmill. Why? Montana calls. British columbia calls...
Ontario calls; wellington calls; sydney calls; edinburgh calls...
there are so many more civilized options than republican slavery.

[Beaker]

25. No, thank-you...I'll take chicago winters over that type of life anyday...

and actually, the past few years the winters have been extremely mild- global warming isn't bad for everyone, everywhere.

our alarm goes off at 5:00am, we get up together and go to the health club two blocks away to swim for an hour-an hour and a half.

my wife's train is at 8:02am, and is a 7-minute drive away...it drops her off about a block from her job in glenview, 4 train stops from where she got on.

if she catches the 5:30pm train home, i pick her up at our end at 5:48, and we're home by a few minutes after 6 at the latest.
if she doesn't make the 5:30, there are trains at 6, 6:30, and 7.

no kids, so the evening is ours.
we have a yard, but i've replaced the grass with groundcover, flowers, and water features- so there's nothing to mow. just a little weeding, so the weekends are ours as well. I usually let my wife sleep-in on weekends, which she likes to do...usually until about 10 or 11...or 12.

i thought you cali folks were supposed to be the laid back ones.

[SoCalDem]

33. The "laid back" lifestyle still exists..but only for rich folks

:(..

The "rats" stay on the treadmill.. I have a friend who gets up for work at 2 AM....He does get off work at noon. but since he's in sales, and his income depends on his clients' purchases, he doesn't usually sleep that much, since he needs to contact them during business hours, and his wife has a "normal" job, so when she gets home at 6 or so, he stays up to spend time with her.. He's been going on 3-4 hours of sleep a night...for years....

Evening socializing is out of the question, since Alan dozes off during lulls in conversation :)..

The laid back lifestyle seen in the media, is only for the ones who have the money to work at their own pace..and not at a "real job"..

.....................

My son and his wife live in Concord, and most of the people who have lower paying jobs in their town, have long commutes too, since they cannot afford housing there.. Teachers' salaries will not cover much more than a studio apartment..

My son's house was built in 1953..2 bedrooms..cost them $435,000.00, AND they had to replace all the windows, and have the foundation jacked up and leveled.. The house was only on the market for 5 hours, and was considered a HUGE bargain..

Before they bought the house, they were paying 2100.00 a month for a two bedroom house on a very busy street , with very little parking area..

[Beaker]

35. my brother-in-law lives in palo alto

he's an EE, she's a dr., they have two kids, and a tiny crackerbox of a house that cost them $625,000 several years back.

what's the point of living somewhere where you can't "live"?

[cprise]

26. This book opened my eyes

http://www.carfree.com/

Its so nice to read something positive on this subject for a change.

[Cleita]

27. Freeways were supposed to help people save time.

Instead they created the long distance commute. Too bad.

[displacedyankeedem]

28. Is this story apocryphal (commuting by airplane)?

I've heard rumors of people living in cities like Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City and taking the morning Southwest Airlines flight to work in places like Los Angeles or San Francisco and flying back at night. Is this true or just an urban legend?

[LibDemAlways]

31. I'm sure it happens.

I live in So. Cal on the LA/Ventura County line and my husband's job is currently in Seattle. He makes the roundtrip just about every week. I have elderly parents nearby and a 6th grader at home who loves her school and friends - and we've decided that moving isn't an option right now.

As long as the commute doesn't bother him - and it doesn't - I guess we'll continue to make the best of our unusual situation.

[SoCalDem]

34. My husband did it for 3 years.. to Las vegas

His company had him set up there to monitor their share of the building of the MGM Hotel/Casino.. He flew home on weekends, or I would drive up there occasionally..

Our son was in high school, so we did not want to move..and the company he worked for was not one he wanted to stay with forever, so he commutes until the project was done, and then changed jobs..

His commute is under an hour now, but still on those damned freeways:(


I went on vacation in 1996, and never went back to work.. so my commute is from the bedroom, to my computer room :):)..But my "paycheck" sucks :)

[Beaker]

36. my "hours" are the same as yours, but the pay is better...

i'm on permanent total disability, currently getting about $1100/month...but then, those COLA increases start adding up- I may even make it up to $1250/month in my lifetime.

[SoCalDem]

37. You are lucky to get disability.. I know lots of people who should

be able to get it, but the paperwork is daunting, and they have been turned down, and then become discouraged.:(

[displacedyankeedem]

29. Also, I'd rather be in CA

For their size, three of the most culturally devoid cities in the country have to be the heavily Republican Metropolises Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta. Concrete over culture.

[leodem]

32. That's why...

I'm trying to get into a PD with a 3 day 12 hour shift. Have four days off a week to actual relax, enjoy, or whatever, and if I do decide to travel a long commute it's only three days a week. I don't plan on having kids or anything so I don't have it as bad as some of you but even for a somebody like myself it can be hard sometimes these days.