A simultaneously fascinating and depressing article in today's USA Today about the 21st Century phenomenon of "Extreme Commuting," where some poor unfortunate Yankees take up to ninety minutes to get from home to work.
The average commute time in the States is 25.5 minutes.
The reason the Yanks are hitting the highways is the price of housing. Again, according to the article, the median cost of a house in Los Angeles was $405,000 last year, which works out at 304,000 in Euro. This is naturally out of the question as a price for a place to live, so what they do is they give themselves ninety minute commutes so they can buy a house at $275,000, which is 205,000 Euro.
An Spailpín was so stunned by this that he paid a visit to MyHome.ie to see what 200 grand in Yoyos would get him. The answer is a field in Lusk, which doesn't even have a house on it at all. Not only does not it have a house, it doesn't even have planning permission. You can't even build there! What are you meant do? Pitch a tent?
Did I mention that those ninety minute journeys are over seventy miles? Wonder how long it'd take you to get to the IFSC by car, famously the beating heart of the fabulous Celtic Tiger, if you started from seventy miles away?
Why aren't we rioting in the streets? What's wrong with us?
