Housing is largely a positional good, so for that Starbucks employee to live close by, someone else has to commute. Building more housing makes it less accute, but there will always be people willing to deal with long commutes, so that is the behaviour you see. I mean, I work at a company that pays very well in NYC and I have co-workers with 1hr+ commutes because they traded off commute time for a nicer home.