Sounds like your problem isn't with walkable neighborhoods either, more the last 60 years or so of urban policy.
America has barely built any walkable neighborhoods since WWII, and in the post-WWII era we left most of the existing ones to rot. Now that such neighborhoods are desirable again, the ones that have survived as pleasant neighborhoods, especially in cities with strong economies, have become hideously expensive. (A lot are still pretty affordable in the Midwest.)
Your individual life choices are reasonable, but they're not an indictment of walkable neighborhoods in general so much as the last 60 years of American urban policy. Of course, suburbs have a broad spectrum, from pre-WWII railroad suburbs where downtown-bound commuters ride transit and kids walk to school, to the Sun Belt's utterly unwalkable sprawling hellscapes. The Milwaukee suburb I grew up in looks an awful lot like expensive central Portland neighborhoods, except it's a lot cheaper and transit is less well-used because downtown Milwaukee isn't doing all that well.
America has barely built any walkable neighborhoods since WWII, and in the post-WWII era we left most of the existing ones to rot. Now that such neighborhoods are desirable again, the ones that have survived as pleasant neighborhoods, especially in cities with strong economies, have become hideously expensive. (A lot are still pretty affordable in the Midwest.)
Your individual life choices are reasonable, but they're not an indictment of walkable neighborhoods in general so much as the last 60 years of American urban policy. Of course, suburbs have a broad spectrum, from pre-WWII railroad suburbs where downtown-bound commuters ride transit and kids walk to school, to the Sun Belt's utterly unwalkable sprawling hellscapes. The Milwaukee suburb I grew up in looks an awful lot like expensive central Portland neighborhoods, except it's a lot cheaper and transit is less well-used because downtown Milwaukee isn't doing all that well.