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I spent a bit of time living in New York, and I was never short on something to do even without spending much—if any—money. There's just so much to explore and enjoy on foot on top of free scheduled events. The museums vary in price but some are definitely affordable (including the Met where you can pay any price for a ticket). Just the parks and the city itself—eminently accessible thanks to the incredible subway system—are worth it on its own.

I'm back in the Bay Area now and, well, it's not New York, but it's still surprisingly accessible. Concerts with local bands, free lectures (on tech topics or not), free events at a park or on the beach... No magical subway system though: public transport exists but, especially if you're coming in from out of SF, it's a bit of a pain.

Point being that you can definitely experience a lot either for free or for pretty cheap. But there's no way to get around the high rent, except with a high salary.

If you're coming into SF from outside, consider the bus. Takes longer than BART to cover the same distance, but is far more comfortable and I find I am more able to make good use of the time.

I've taken the bus to and from Berkeley before, but I highly prefer Bart. It's significantly faster and I actually find the train more comfortable, especially at off-peak times. The stations tend to be nice places to wait than outdoor bus stops too.

I do have some friends who prefer the busses, so it's clearly not clear-cut.

I travel by bus, but mainly because the BART is so =loud=. The screechy breaks and rumbling is almost painful, especially when going in the tunnel from East Bay into the city.

It seems much louder than other subways in cities where I have lived. Have others experienced this?

It's certainly a YMMV kind of thing.

> especially at off-peak times

Yeah, BART is a much more pleasant experience at off-peak times than anywhere near rush-hour. In my experience, I still find the NL line (at least) uncrowded enough to get a seat any time of day (unless there's significant BART trouble).

"Why move to a city to do stuff, if once I get there I cannot afford to do anything."

Likewise, I live in a culture-free area, but between work and kids and numerous easily affordable vacations to cultural areas, I have no time to go out drinking (which is usually all people mean by "culture" anyway). If, suddenly on the commute home, an art museum fell onto the interstate, I'd merely have to detour around it, I have a little league practice to get to tonight.

I find it ironic that a childhood friend lives in Chicago but can't afford to do anything but scrape by, but as an outsider I can trivially afford to visit and do more in his own hometown than he can afford to do! He does have a much cooler address than I do.

I think people who focus on "culture" need to carefully look at their lives and consider what it is costing them. Are you one of those people who really do go out two or three times a week to some sort of unique event that doesn't exist anywhere else? OK, sure, rock on. No sarcasm; I know you're out there.

But are you praising the "culture" of an area while your yearly "culture" itinerary is that you went to an art museum and a mid-list concert?

Are you really using the "culture" of your area, or is it just a rationalization to stay where you are?

I would consider it a successful outcome of this message if those of you who live in a "cultural" area resolve to take better advantage of it in the future. I'm not trying to say the "culture" stuff is useless. I'm just saying that people's words and actions seem divergent here, and the worst case outcome in terms of bang-for-the-buck is to pay to live in a high-culture area, and then not use it.

This is a really good point, especially since people who live in the suburbs are frequently a short train ride away from the exact same "culture" that the folks who live downtown get to experience. And if you're living in a sweet downtown loft but just sit in your room and watch Netflix all day long, why pay the premium? You can watch Netflix in the suburbs just as well.

I think that people obey fashion when it comes to living addresses just as much as they obey fashion when it comes to clothing, cars, and so on. No one likes to say that they living in a suburb of a Midwest city, even if that's actually the best decision they could make with their living circumstances.

> I think that people obey fashion when it comes to living addresses just as much as they obey fashion when it comes to clothing, cars, and so on. No one likes to say that they living in a suburb of a Midwest city, even if that's actually the best decision they could make with their living circumstances.

As somebody who recently moved to the city centre, from a 1hr away suburb I believe this is very much true. My move was motivated in part by the reactions I would get from people when I told them where I lived. I'm glad I moved downtown as I'm closer to work and all the city amenities are never more than a half-hour away, but occasionally I have mixed feelings about my decision as my disposable income has gone down considerably and I'm not putting away into my savings as much as I'd like to.

Interesting, my wife and I have been asking ourselves these questions lately and we came to the conclusion that living in Portland (Oregon) is not worth the premium that it entails over living 30 minutes outside of Portland.

Yet, at the same time, I yearn to live inside the city.

I'm not fully thought out on this, but somehow I think it's ultimately a status thing. The cool people live in the city, so I want to live in the city.

As one who, a decade ago, made the choice to live 10 mins from work in a Portland suburb rather than live in the city and commute 40-60 mins each way, we don't regret the decision at all.

Sure I would love to live in one of the leafy old neighborhoods in Portland, but we can get there in less than 30 minutes on the weekends and I don't stress over voluntarily driving into the city midweek once in a while. It would be nice to be a bit less car dependent, but having two cars in our family is more a choice of convenience than a necessity.

I don't have kids and I pretty much agree with you. On a weekday, I get up, I go to the gym or for a run or swim, and I go to work. After work, I come home, and I make dinner. If I lived in a vibrant city area, I'm honestly not sure what I'd do after that. At the end of a full day of work, I'm tired. I'm not exceptionally introverted but the last thing I want to do is spend 4 more hours in public. I'd rather spend the evening reading, or catching up on a TV show, or working on a hobby project. I'm certainly not going to go out drinking - I have to work again tomorrow! And for the handful of times a month there is something in the city I want to attend, the hassle of driving/busing/ubering into the city isn't too bad.

I do think there is a split between married (with or without kids) and single people. My wife was gone for a couple weeks last month and it got pretty quiet in the evenings. I can see why single people would prefer the city.

Culture is more than just drinking. Art, Museums, Sports, Music, Food etc. all contribute to what what we call culture.

Also, people live in big cities for a variety of reasons. One the biggest ones is finding better jobs. If his current job is not paying enough to live by, I think that living in Chicago offers a lot more opportunities for him to get a job that does.

There is something funny about culture. I lived in Cambridge, MA a number of years, and even though I never went to a single concert, museum, or other kind of event it always gave me certain warm and fuzzies that those things were available to do at any time. Maybe it was just something you could tell your friends or family. It's like there is a certain prestige to living there which makes it rate higher on a mental list of top places to live.

Yes, this is exactly what I mean. Also, sometimes there might be some event which really catches your eye. This kind of stuff often happens randomly and is definitely not planned. Living in a city where this is possible: to attend interesting events without taking vacation, is the best part about living in cities.

> Art, Museums, Sports, Music, Food etc. all contribute to what what we call culture.

I love museums, but I go once or twice a year. Same with live sports. It doesn't really justify living in a place. Live music is great, although admittedly I don't do that as much as I used to.

One of my favorite cultural activities? Traveling to experience another cultural. Nothing's quite as conducive to that as a low cost of living when I'm not traveling.

Sure traveling is great when you have the resources to do so on a regular basis. For the large majority of urbanites, regular travel is either not affordable nor very convenient (note that most of the people on this forum probably can travel frequently; I'm talking about the general populace). In such cases, events put out in local venues provide the best opportunities for recreation.

It depends on which museum you're talking about. The Museum of Modern Art in Houston generally has month long exhibitions which I love. There is a Museum of Art in Austin which has even more regular events, based on different themes etc. So I definitely do visit museums more than once a year :)

That is exactly the point freyir and I are trying to make. Because I don't live in Chicago, but I can visit anytime I want with minimal effort or financial impact, I can afford to visit Chicago any time I want. Perhaps I will visit your museum in Houston some time. I like visiting famous museums, that's why I don't live nearby any famous ones, specifically so I can afford to visit them. I enjoyed visiting NYC and traveling all over Ireland which was only financially possible because I don't live in a "cultural capital". Chicago BTW has some excellent museums. You can easily spend an entire weekend at the Field museum or the MSI or the aquarium and because I don't live there, I can afford to do so.

>Also, people live in big cities for a variety of reasons. One the biggest ones is finding better jobs. If his current job is not paying enough to live by, I think that living in Chicago offers a lot more opportunities for him to get a job that does.

That's kind of a treadmill, though. There's no real point to moving somewhere chasing a better job if any increase in salary is going to be eaten up by extra taxes and living expenses. I could get a job with a substantially higher salary if I moved to SF, but at the end of the month I'd have less money.

I experience the freedom of travel now. My cost of living is low enough, that I can take pretty much as many major trips a year as my PTO allows. But at the same time, I am youngish, and have pretty minimal responsibility. I figuring moving to a bigger city for a few years might not be a bad career move.

Since moving to Palo Alto, I have to think that this area resembles more of a small town that you describe rather than a large, cultural city. Local brewed beer is rare to non-existant. Pub beer labels read the usual brands you'd expect. We're skewered between San Jose (go Sharks!) and SF(go Giants & Warriors!) and save for a few brief weekends of Stanford football are completely void of our own sporting events. Our skyline is worse than lacklustre, it's non-existent. In fact the lack of tall building means Stanford's own belltower has some singular local prominence. Except for the fact that nearly every building is emblazoned with the Who's Who of tech company branding, it would be difficult to pick out Palo Alto from any other sleepy college town.

Remember that Palo Alto is a suburb for tech folks. If you're interested in technology, it's about as good as it gets in suburbia. It's more about schools, parks and libraries for families than clubbing and nightlife.

You can still find good beer at almost every bar in town, from Anonio's Nutbar to Sliderbar to Rose and Crown and everything in-between. The presence of Stanford makes for a good restaurant and bar scene.

But... It's still a suburb.

> Except for the fact that nearly every building is emblazoned with the Who's Who of tech company branding, it would be difficult to pick out Palo Alto from any other sleepy college town.

The $3m but very unremarkable homes make it a little easier.

If they're unremarkable, perhaps not...

Palo Alto is a suburb.

That's a large part of the problem.

It is / is near employment hubs. It offers very little by way of housing options. Hence: housing prices are extreme.

$1 million for middle class/working class housing built in 1964 sets it apart from most sleepy college towns.

It's a sleepy college town for tech millionaires to raise their families.

and that's actually one of the primary problems with the bay area. The peninsula's refusal to densify due to NIMBYism is creating all this pressure on the rest of the area's housing supply.

> SF(go Giants & Warriors!)

The Warriors are in Oakland (for now)!

I'd argue many of the cities in blue (extreme expansive/inexpensive) have culture at least on par with many of the most red/expensive/restricted cities -- it's different due to geography.

Austin, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Orlando compare favorably to San Jose, San Diego, Sacramento.

The claim that Las Vegas or Orlando have culture beyond pots of yogurt in the mini-marts is laughable. Austin's culture is slowly being bled away by the same rising costs of living that afflict other tech hubs, but there are still wisps of it outside the 6th street tourist area if you look for it according to those who still remain in the area. You would probably have made a better claim by going with the Raleigh-Durham area and Charlotte.

Disney/WDW and Vegas casinos are globally recognized powerhouses, on par with Hollywood, Broadway, etc.

Just because it's not "high culture" doesn't mean it's not culture.

I grew up in Atlanta. I just wish in-the-perimeter wasn't such a ghost town. I think this is changing with the massive number of apartments being built lately (and the Beltline), but it would be nice to have more of a "bustling" downtown (compare the number of pedestrians mid-day in SF vs mid-day in Atlanta). But then again, I've always been partial to the concept of European walking cities.

When I visited Atlanta 20 years ago, staying in a downtown hotel, I was surprised by how empty the city got after 5pm. It was a huge contrast to NYC where people actually live. It sounds like this is actually changing now.

How are the summers (temp/humidity)?

I don't have a specific answer, but rather a general suggestion: weatherspark is a site with pretty thorough climate data. It shows average high and low temperature and humidity throughout the year, as well as 10/25/75/90 percentiles for each. Also does wind and precipitation. I miss their old weather dashboard like crazy, but the climate data is still good.

Awful on the entire East Coast. Hot and overbearingly humid.

Indeed, it may be that having a highly centralized city, and a cultural hub, go together. I live in a mid sized town in the Midwest where there is a fair amount of demand for living in the central neighborhoods -- people ranging from hipsters to retirees, and also a lot of culture.

I use a lot of those amenities. Music is a huge part of my life. I'm a performing jazz musician. My kids participate in the youth symphony. We attend classical music concerts together. (Yeah, my kids are weird). I'd have a very hard time living in a culture desert, and would probably not want to live in the US at all unless it's in one of a very short list of cities.

Austin has culture and affordability as a counterexample.

Um, I would fault you on both.

First, downtown Austin is now actually more expensive than downtown San Diego. When people say "Austin" and "cheap housing" they mean Round Rock, Pflugerville, San Marcos, etc. Many of those places are now an hour or more commute to downtown Austin in horrific traffic that now rivals Los Angeles. When people think "San Diego" they don't mean commuting from Ramona or Temecula (an equivalent hour of horrific commute).

Second, Austin has some culture, but has been working overtime to flush it down the drain. Stevie Ray Vaughn would be an unwelcome, dirty scumbag on the current 6th Street. Medium sized venues (300-1000 people) that launched major music careers are becoming very scarce (I blame smoking bans mostly). And most of the "cultural" catering is to overpaid DINKs (Dual Income--No Kids) who want desperately to be so cool yet complain about the noise from the very places that they moved in next to in order to be cool.

San Diego is a bit odd in that it seems like a place where downtown is still relatively affordable (emphasis on relative), while people pay quite a bit to live in the beach towns and historic streetcar suburbs. I was surprised at how cheap condos in high rises in Little Italy could be, and how expensive houses in Clairemont Mesa (a place that seems to have few redeeming qualities) were.

Source: Lived in South Park, a streetcar suburb about 3 miles from downtown, for the last year. Enjoyed SP, but disliked SD.

Also, many people will decry my use of the word "suburb" for a place 3 miles out, but it was originally built as one and the residents have fought tooth and nail to prevent any development that would change its character or increase density. I'm sure they don't mind that their home values have increased massively as a result of these restrictions on building in nearly the only pleasant, walkable neighborhood in a city composed primarily of aphalt hellscape, though.

"When people say "Austin" and "cheap housing" they mean Round Rock, Pflugerville, San Marcos, etc. Many of those places are now an hour or more commute to downtown Austin in horrific traffic that now rivals Los Angeles. "

This is the reason I didn't move there a few years ago. I flew in for the interview, and was stuck in various traffic jams the entire 2 days I was there. The economy there is booming, so it's not like the traffic is coming from a bad place, but I'm not keen on hour-plus commutes.

as does houston, which always seems to be overlooked on these lists. i spent four years there for grad school, and other than the woefully inadequate public transit system it was a very livable and extremely cosmopolitan city.

Rice or UH?

rice. nice part of town too, one of the few places i could actually walk to stuff.

The Rice University area is WAY non-representative of Houston.

Saying that you live in Houston when you live near Rice is like saying that you live in Texas when you live in Austin.

Austin has [...] affordability

Lived experience and countless local articles scream otherwise. Of course, when you compare to NYC and LA, just about everything looks 'affordable'-yet this is the most common refrain to Austin: "It's cheaper than NY".

What city in the US that isn't greater-LA, SF or Seattle isn't?

Austin and LA are pretty comparable in terms of cost, at this point. LA is quickly becoming the affordable West coast city...

I'm using data from the link, which disagrees.

Average data for Austin, though, misses some important points. Anything near central is quickly becoming unaffordable to anyone without a high paying professional job. Outer lying areas are still affordable, but the transportation situation is so horrendous that living in those outlying areas comes with a high personal cost if you have to commute.

Even living in the city core has serious transportation costs in a few areas.

I used to live in South Central Austin and commute north of 183 to work. When my car broke down I took the bus-no big deal, coming from Chicago I don't have many aspersions to public transit-so long as it works and is relatively safe (or as safe as a city can reasonably make it).

When I say "pick your poison" re: cost, I mean getting from my apartment to my job on time meant waking up 3 hours before shift begins and riding for two hours. Getting off work at 5:30 and not getting home until almost 9 depending on traffic conditions (school year meant having to ride through the UT area, that added another hour).

The "personal cost" adevine mentions here is real and it is painful. You're either going to spend more on gas and vehicular maintenance, or you're going to spend every waking moment not at work sitting on the bus (depending on where you live), or waiting for a bus.

The link is about change in values; the absolute value is also important.

> I am looking to move cities, but after factoring in an astronomical rise in housing cost, and a price of living adjustment that does come close to matching, I am having second thoughts. Why move to a city to do stuff, if once I get there I cannot afford to do anything.

There are a number of good, affordable cities. Baltimore is fantastic for how cheap it is.

Yes, when 16% of available housing is abandoned things tend to get pretty cheap.

Isn't the crime in Baltimore still pretty bad?

Like in most cities, crime is a block-by-block issue. Places like Fells Point or Bolton Hill are pretty safe. We lived at the edge of Bolton Hill for two years with a small child and loved it.

I have 4 friends who live in Baltimore, and they say it's the opposite of most big cities. In most big cities, there are a few blocks that are bad but most of the city is safe. They say it's the opposite in Baltimore -- most of it is dangerous and there are a few safe areas.