[”..which is horribly congested most of the day. “
Wrong. Everyone that is in any ‘traffic jam’ ....freely wants to be there. Just like a crowded concert. You don’t hear people talking about concert crowd crises do you? Just like a popular bar.
There, at the concert, in the ‘traffic’ everyone wants to be there. No one forced them. They are all adults, supposedly rational. If you want to live in a urban area, you are going to have times of maximum utilization of any public space. This is natural. If you don’t like that urban phenomenon, the US is a big, open nation where you can live decades and never encounter urban events. Natural, rational events, are not ‘horrible’.]
I suspect you don’t live anywhere near Miami for you to say this.
Miami’s downtown is actually quite small, but most of the major business offices are either downtown or out by the airport (South American divisions of Hewlett-Packard, IBM etc.).
Most of the area, which is probably about 250+ square miles, is suburban, not urban.
I don’t see how driving to your job is similar to going to a crowded bar, that seems to be a stretch for this argument.
As for making choices, it looks like labor mobility is a BIT OF AN ISSUE right now for moving to other locations, assuming of course you can get hired and be able to sell a house.
Move.
Everyone there, wants to be there.
Everyone at the time of a traffic ‘jam’ wants to be there. No one, not one single person is forced at any particular time, to get into a car. Go earlier, go later, move downtown, up town, cross town. Work nights, get a new job. No one ‘forces’ you. YOU have choices. I, no one, is one bit responsible for some inconvenience to YOU. You are. Move to Stuart, or Vero, or Oury, Colorado.
You have to weigh nearness to jobs, ie, an urban enviorment with the fact that there are a lot of people there. Duh. All transportaion pipes (road, rail, airports, ports) are as a matter of effinice and thus cost, built to handle less than maximum usuage. So, you will always have ‘jams’.
Jams are a feature, not a defect.