Despite planners' best efforts, many people choose the commute

David Wilson lives in Fremont, Dan Griffiths and Mary Anne Lyman in Tacoma. Andrew Chen's home is in Newcastle, Roxann Harr's in Auburn, Nancy Andersen's in Federal Way.

They all work for the same insurance company — in Enumclaw.

They're living, breathing examples of a demographic reality the U.S. Census Bureau has quantified for the first time:

Despite the dramatic surge of new jobs in suburbia over the past three decades, most people in this and other metropolitan areas don't work in the same communities in which they live.

Just three of every eight workers who live in Bellevue also work in that city. In Federal Way, it's less than one in four; in Bothell, less than one in five.

Lack of affordable housing in some of the region's job centers is a factor. But there's much more at play.

A commute that crosses city limits isn't necessarily lengthy. Still, census estimates, based on information collected in 2000, help explain why traffic in the Central Puget Sound area can be such a mess.

They also raise questions about just what constitutes community when people's lives are spread all over the map.

"It's just hard to maintain that Ozzie-and-Harriet sense that your work, your social life and everything else is all contained in one idyllic, self-sufficient community," says King County demographer Chandler Felt.

"I don't think there's much of that left in the Puget Sound region."

Seattle is one of just three cities and unincorporated "census designated places" in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties where a majority of residents live and work in the same community. The other two are military bases.

The geographic divide between home and work is most pronounced in bedroom communities where there simply aren't many jobs.

Six of seven working residents of Sammamish, 10 of 11 working residents of Mountlake Terrace and 11 of 12 working residents of Newcastle commute to jobs elsewhere.

Here's what's more surprising: The situation isn't that different in places where jobs abound.

Only about 40 percent of the workers who live in Redmond — a city where jobs greatly outnumber residents — also work there, according to the Census Bureau. For Tukwila, another regional job magnet, that figure is even smaller: just 17 percent.

About three-quarters of the residents of Issaquah, Renton and Kent who work, earn their living in another town.

In the 1980s, a concept called "jobs-housing balance" arose in urban-planning circles.

If government policies promoted building new houses, condos and apartments close to offices, stores and factories, the thinking went, people would commute shorter distances and be more likely to walk, bike or take the bus to work.

Traffic and air quality would improve. Energy consumption would plummet.

The census estimates for places like Redmond and Issaquah suggest "there are limits to that notion, and they should be recognized," says Dan Carlson, a senior lecturer at the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs who studies transportation and land use.

People versus planners

In other words: People don't necessarily do what planners think they will.

Planners at the Puget Sound Regional Council say the idea of jobs-housing balance has evolved over the past 15 years.

The region's blueprint for growth still promotes clustering most new housing and jobs in high-density regional centers.

That gives more people the opportunity to live where they work, but principal planner Ben Bakkenta says the agency harbors no illusions that most people will do so.

Plans now emphasize improving the transportation network between the centers, senior planner Carol Naito says. That reflects the real world: Proximity to work isn't the only factor people consider when they choose where to live.

The census estimates indicate Enumclaw may have the best jobs-housing balance in the region. About 4,700 people work inside the city limits. About 4,800 workers live there.

For the most part, however, they're not the same people.

More than 70 percent of Enumclaw's working residents commute to out-of-town jobs. And more than 70 percent of the people who work in Enumclaw live somewhere else.

Enumclaw Insurance Group, better known as Mutual of Enumclaw, is one of the city's largest employers. Only 136 of its 385 employees live in Enumclaw.

Many others live in nearby cities such as Buckley, Auburn and Bonney Lake, but others commute from as far away as Poulsbo and Glenoma, Lewis County.

Too expensive

Some say they don't live in Enumclaw in part because housing there is too expensive. Nancy Andersen, who commutes from Federal Way, talks of a dumpy rental house near the insurance company's office that's on the market for $900 a month.

"That's outrageous to me," she says.

Randy Bannecker, housing specialist with the Seattle-King County Association of Realtors, says lack of affordable housing prevents many people from living where their jobs are.

"Typically, people want to live closer to work," Bannecker says.

"If housing was really in balance with jobs, you'd have affordability. It's not in place right now in relation to actual demand," Bannecker says.

But Enumclaw Insurance Group's employees talk of much more than money in explaining why they don't live in Enumclaw.

Their decisions reflect regional and national trends: more two-income households, more frequent job changes.

They also reflect personal preferences that are stronger than any aversion to longer commutes.

Roxann Harr lives between Auburn and Black Diamond. She's moving to Maple Valley, farther from Enumclaw.

She likes the Maple Valley schools, and her husband's commute is a factor. He works at Boeing Field in Seattle.

"It's kind of a compromise," she says.

When Dan Griffiths bought his house in northeast Tacoma in 1989, it was within walking distance of his job in Federal Way. Then his employer left the state.

Family matters

He says he considered moving when he got the job in Enumclaw, but uprooting his family was too big a price to pay.

"It would just upset a lot of the kids' routines," Griffiths says. "The only reason to move would be to reduce my commute time."

David Wilson's round-trip commute between his home in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood and his job in Enumclaw puts about 450 miles on his car each week.

Before joining Enumclaw Insurance Group five years ago, he worked in downtown Seattle and took the bus.

Wilson and his wife have lived in Fremont for more than 17 years.

"We just like the neighborhood," he says. "We like our house. We like our neighbors."

The drive to Enumclaw usually takes about an hour in the morning.

"It hasn't felt like a burden," he says.

Enumclaw, still surrounded by Douglas firs and Holsteins, is too rural and isolated for Nancy Andersen.

"I wouldn't be happy out here; it's too far from everything," she says. "I don't like big cities, and I don't like rural."

Her decision, and those of her co-workers, "underscores the enormity of choices in a metropolitan area," the UW's Carlson says.

"Not everyone wants the same kind of lifestyle."

Still, the region would be better off if more people worked and lived in the same place, he says.

"It's more efficient and it builds community in richer ways," Carlson says.

When people live and work in the same community, they encounter each other in different capacities, he says.

You may visit your doctor during the day, then see him in the community chorus at the high-school auditorium that night.

Rooted feeling

People also may feel a stronger connection to civic life in a community in which they live and work, says Naito of the Puget Sound Regional Council.

Felt, the King County demographer, and Bakkenta of the regional council say people may be finding community today not in their neighborhoods but online or in book groups or churches — "communities of interest, rather than geographic communities," Bakkenta says.

By living and working in different places, Carlson says, some people also may be responding to an impulse that can be just as strong as the desire for community: a craving for anonymity.

Big metropolitan areas can offer that, Carlson says. It's more difficult where everyone knows your name.

He lives on Vashon Island and says he knows of teachers and other residents with highly public island jobs who go to the grocery there only during off hours, when they can shop in privacy and peace.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com