North (San Diego) County Times: Survey finds many would consider moving aw

[question everything]

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Survey finds many would consider moving away

By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer

NORTH COUNTY ---- Weary from traffic congestion and wary of ever-increasing housing prices, a majority of respondents in a recent survey of San Diego County residents say they have considered packing up and moving away.

Fifty-six percent of the 900 respondents in a telephone survey of randomly selected households countywide said the current median house price of $593,000 has them pondering a move out of the region. That's up from 39 percent in a similar survey conducted in 2002.

The latest survey, commissioned by the San Diego Association of Governments and conducted in May, found that while housing costs loom large, the No.1 concern for county residents continues to be highway congestion.

(snip)

The association of governments earlier this year reported that motorists on the region's freeways spent nearly 50 hours sitting in traffic during peak commute times in 2004.

The effect of recent local scandals involving elected leaders also emerged in the survey, in which 13 percent cited concerns about confidence in their government representatives, up from 3 percent in 2002.

(snip)

To get a look at the survey in detail, log on to http:www.sandag.org and click on publications.

Contact staff writer Mark Walker at [phone] or [e-mail].

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/07/19/news/top_stories/71805190944.txt

[getmeouttahere]

1. C'mon people, it's a trade-off...

if you want to live in the suburbs, you just might have to commute a long way to work. The real problem here is the astronomical rise in housing prices. But if these people are mostly complaining about traffic, well, I don't want to hear it. Nobody is forcing anyone to live 40 or more miles from where they work. The only way to alleviate the congestion (short of most of these people actually moving away) is to build more mass transit, with the accompanying willingness of the people to get out of their cars. Of course, people in the suburbs of North SD county, being overwhelmingly republican, would likely never vote for funds to create more mass transit.