The Manhattanites might get the last laugh.
Not after they find out what fuel trucks run on, and how much of everything goes by one or more trucks.
Look, the Chicago Metropolitan Area Population is 9.5 million.
9,500,000 people.
Chicago city itself is 2,700,000 people.
Bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, so all the population is in a half-circle. So already 50% of the theoretical area is uninhabitable.
There is no choice for lots of people other than to live quite a distance from work. There’s just no room. Even if you can find a reasonably priced house close to your work, when/if you change jobs – or your job moves to another location – you are no longer close.
The long history of cheap gas allowed it in the US, so people took the gamble that it would always be so.
There’s a bit of another factor. No reason to go into that now, it happened a couple hundred years ago.