I found another gem going through my notes; this one is from a talk by Professor P.R. Kumar (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), his group is doing research in the field of Cyber Physical Systems which for example includes optimization of traffic by enabling communication of cars and street lights.

It turns out there is a sweet spot at about 1 hour commute time, this is roughly what people consider to be okay. Interestingly, you don’t get ecological benefits from shortening their commute below that; they will simply move further out.