Don't get me wrong, I love my car and the independence it affords me (besides, with six cylinders and turbo, it great on I-5 when the JQ Laws aint around), but there are folks in Southern California who spend TWO F-CKING HOURS OR MORE in their car ONE WAY! That's sick IMHO.
Lansing and Detroit are equal distances(45 miles), but Lansing is much quicker. I can usually make it to Downtown in 40-50 minutes. That's the difference between a metro area of about 225,000 and one of about 3 million.
If a work situation force me to Detroit, I'll be going to Macomb County(Oakland costs too much) unless I'm running for office. I don't mind commutes, but I hate bumper to bumper backups because of some jackass gawking at a cop pulling someone over.