4 ms·

I am sure Dallas and Houston are great places to be, but my own prerequisite for "big city life" is the ability to live comfortably without a car (and because t

I am sure Dallas and Houston are great places to be, but my own prerequisite for "big city life" is the ability to live comfortably without a car (and because the poster is from the Bay Area, I assumed they had something similar in mind). This doesn't just mean public transit, either, but high density architecture to eliminate the amount of time I need to spend traveling for groceries/food/coffee/social activities (so I can continue working asap). Good public transit gives me freedom to concentrate my income on things that are important to me - no car maintenance, no debt, and an even further increase to the amount of time I can be productive in a day (by doing work on a train/bus). So keeping this criteria for "big city" in mind, I think few in the US can compare to San Francisco, New York and Chicago, and out of those three Chicago has a drastically cheaper price point.

SwellJoe 8y ago
I think the Bay Area outside of SF is only barely qualified for a carless lifestyle, and most of it is not "big city". I lived for three years in Mountain View with only a bike, but still had to rent a car now and then. There's the Caltrain corridor (which I lived on), but if you get out into the suburbs of San Jose, Sunnyvale, etc. you pretty much need a car. Chicago is better in that regard, but Houston and Dallas both have a train (and some buses), like much of the Bay Area, which also has a train (and some buses)...you can live on that line and live without a car most of the time, if everything works out (like your commute also happens to be on that line). But, most people in those cities have a car, as is true of much of the Bay area. And, it's probably not useful to treat "Bay Area" as a singular city. There's really only one big city in the Bay Area that works for this argument, so someone accustomed to the Bay Area life could very well have a car. Cars suck, of course, and every great city should stop relying on them. But, the necessity of a car is not the only factor in what makes a big city great, even though it's important.
- tropdrop 8y ago
  Fair point, I don't know that the poster lives in San Francisco. But it's not the only big city in the Bay Area that works for this argument - Oakland and Berkeley with their multiple train lines would like a word about that!

SwellJoe 8y ago

I think the Bay Area outside of SF is only barely qualified for a carless lifestyle, and most of it is not "big city". I lived for three years in Mountain View with only a bike, but still had to rent a car now and then. There's the Caltrain corridor (which I lived on), but if you get out into the suburbs of San Jose, Sunnyvale, etc. you pretty much need a car. Chicago is better in that regard, but Houston and Dallas both have a train (and some buses), like much of the Bay Area, which also has a train (and some buses)...you can live on that line and live without a car most of the time, if everything works out (like your commute also happens to be on that line). But, most people in those cities have a car, as is true of much of the Bay area. And, it's probably not useful to treat "Bay Area" as a singular city. There's really only one big city in the Bay Area that works for this argument, so someone accustomed to the Bay Area life could very well have a car. Cars suck, of course, and every great city should stop relying on them. But, the necessity of a car is not the only factor in what makes a big city great, even though it's important.

tropdrop 8y ago
Fair point, I don't know that the poster lives in San Francisco. But it's not the only big city in the Bay Area that works for this argument - Oakland and Berkeley with their multiple train lines would like a word about that!