Drive Times to Civilization When Living in a Private Community

This post was submitted by guest blogger College Football Fan:

You live in a planned community and need to drive to the nearest drugstore to purchase a prescription drug or maybe drive to a grocery store and buy a gallon of milk.  If lucky, you only may have a short, convenient and inexpensive drive to the store.  If you are not so fortunate, you have a lengthy, traffic oppressive and expensive drive to do your shopping, business, health care or recreation.  The distance and related time to the nearest city or town will determine your commute time.  In certain parts of the country, it’s not unusual to find private communities that are located some distance from local cities and towns.  That is often a draw for the people who live in these places.

Oh no! We forgot milk!!!

There are some mitigating factors to reduce commuting time.  Some communities may be labeled as “rural” giving the appearance that a long commute time is required to complete tasks outside of the home.  However, just because a city is considered rural does not mean that one must drive a long distance to shop or do other tasks.  The rural community may be located five, ten or fifteen miles by interstate highway to a city which houses the conveniences a homeowner requires. Also, some established communities have their own grocery stores, pharmacies, health care facilities, and other entities found in the city.

There are situations where a planned community is not conveniently located near a large city but it uses the facilities of a small or moderate sized city.  In these instances the property owner may have to drive twenty-five to fifty miles to obtain services at a hospital, visit a museum or shop at one of the larger supermarkets.  When one is that far away from facilities then it is prudent to determine if it is good tradeoff between living in a planned community versus the commute time to the location housing the needed services.

Commuting time can be impacted by the closest major city to the community.  Some major cities can have a negative impact on commuting time while other cities have positive attributes that lessen traffic headaches.  Many planned communities have been developed in Sun Belt states and the western part of the United States.  Some communities in these geographic areas will have major cities that make commuting for appointments or recreation a headache.  Residents in planned communities that have to use, among others, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Washington, D.C., Tampa, Dallas, Orlando, Miami, Detroit, and Atlanta as its major city for health care, education, cultural events, etc., must be prepared to endure a longer commute than desired.  These cities have problems ranging from no public transportation, people not using public transportation, roads not having the capacity to handle all the cars and poor city infrastructure.  On the positive side of the ledger, the following cities, among others, have positive attributes that lessen commuting time:  Richmond, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Hartford, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City and Buffalo.

Many potential property owners can gauge the distance/time commute from their property to places of business, health care, education, restaurants, etc. by visiting the planned community.  Most planned communities have discovery packages which enable potential property owners to spend a few days in the community.  During this visit the guests can get a good idea how convenient or inconvenient the commute will be to enjoy the facilities needed for travel, health care, business, recreation and shopping.