If you’ve lived within 20 minutes of a friend versus 2 minutes of a friend, it’d be immediately obvious how irrelevant “only 18 miles” and “within an hour” are.
Someone 45 minutes away might as well require a flight, as far as I’m concerned
I question whether that's relevant to the topic. Being next door to your friends and family (the article) and being a 10 mile drive from friends and family are not the same thing. In one you see each and interact with each other daily. In the other, probably at most once a month.
I lived 7 miles from a close friend. I liked getting to go to his place once a month or so. He lives in a large apartment complex. One friend moved into the same building. They see each other several times a week and his children go over to visit these friends whenever they feel like it. Similarly another friend moved a block away and they see each other far more regularly.
10 miles allows visiting every weekend, it becomes common for the whole extended family to meet for Sunday lunch as I see of my siblings. It also means if you need help moving, replacing a roof, or something else you can make a phone call and get plenty of help on a Saturday. My parents choose to live 30 miles from their parents - close enough to visit every weekend, but not so close they would poke their nose into the kids business every day.
I live 300 miles from where I grew up. Going to "back home" to visit is a big deal and so we don't do it often. Not only is two days lost in travel (technically it is 5-6 hours to drive, but it still wastes most of the day); we can't go home to our beds and so that means we need to get a hotel or sleep on floors - both have downsides. Thus we only consider this trip over long weekends. Visiting us is a similar effort for my siblings and so I rarely see them anymore. (don't get me started on visiting my in-laws who are over 1000 miles away - suffice to say we need a full week off to consider that)
In short, if you can do so I strongly recommend you live close to your friends and family and not move away. However there are many reasons why someone cannot do this.
Distance really isn't that relevant. Time of travel is. This was drilled home to me having moved from a relatively "sparse" metro area to one of the most dense cities in the US.
7 miles might mean a 7 minute drive, or 90 minutes on poor public transit stuck in traffic. When I lived in my previous place, someone 7 miles away would have been a regular daily friend. Now, I would not see someone more than every few months since 7 miles is the equivalent of a 45 minute drive most hours of the day in most directions unless they happen to live right next to rapid transit.
My closest friends here in the city live a 7 minute and 18 minute walk away. I see them about as much as I'd have seen someone living 5-10 miles away from my previous location. The only real difference is the ability to drink while visiting.
