Apparently 70 light years is the sweet spot they want to focus on:

So how many planets are in this 70 light-year radius? Astronomers have found evidence of over 100. And how many are potentially habitable? Just thirteen.

But potentially habitable doesn’t mean there’s life—intelligent or otherwise—and actually, potentially habitable doesn’t mean, uh, very much at all. “It’s quite literally anyone’s guess what those planets are like,” says Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

They bring up an excellent point.  Would it make sense to at least focus more on exoplanets that are somewhat in our range (if you can even call it that) vs. a planet that may appear to be similar to ours but is just so darn far away?

Feel free to comment what are your thoughts?

thanks to wired for this great write up