We moved to Pullman.

My wife and I both work in Pullman, and our son goes to pre-school in Pullman. But because of our crazy schedules, and because we each have to have access to a car, we were both commuting.  So we moved.  Although I loved our Moscow home, I became convinced that we should move, when I considered the cost of commuting:  2 cars x 20 miles (round trip) x 5 days per week x 52 weeks per year = 10,400 miles.  Each of our cars gets approximately 25 miles per gallon.  If gas costs approximately $3.00 per gallon, the cost of the commute was $1,248 per year or about $100 per month—that’s only in gasoline (to say nothing of the time, energy and aggravation costs).  When we bought our house, we carefully calculated fixed housing costs: our loan, taxes, utilities, etc.  We also added the cost of the commute into our housing budget calculation.  Surprisingly, the cost of commuting is not considered a fixed housing cost.  We tend to think about gasoline as a discretionary cost, similar to the cost of food, clothing, etc.  But what if we all calculated expenditures related to commuting into the cost of housing?  How would all of our housing purchase decisions change?  Would suburban development become prohibitively expensive?