NYC is a legit megacity - New York has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world.
SF is small by comparison. Only a small portion of SF is walkable and even then the blocks are long. Transit is sparse and dirty and most people end up owning cars. Despite this housing is more expensive than NYC.
Unless you think it's reasonable to pay $4k a month for a one bedroom in Indianapolis it doesn't make sense to stay in SF.
[ADDED: OK. Not really fair but what make SF unique is very tied into its geography.]
I live in a rural city and paid less than $150k, I saw the equivalent home in SF for $9mil.
Location matters for sure.
Browse https://www.reddit.com/r/CityPorn a bit and you'll see plenty of beautifully located cities with comparable size to SF.
> "Only a small portion of SF is walkable"
This depends on the person :) I've found that on the peninsula, anything from the inner sunset to the water, bounded by the bottom of the mission, can be walked if someone wants and takes their time. Of course that's going to be mainly young able bodied people given the hills, but it does work for a subset of people. Let's also not discount downtown Oakland and the 45 minute walk zone around that either.
there's no need to qualify its walkability either. for most destinations, you can avoid steep hills and don't particularly need to be either young nor fit.
Food? Meh. Another thing that NYC and LA trounce SF on.
People, politics? SF is ground zero for nativism and wealth inequality. There's abject poverty around every corner and the long time residents have no trouble pushing policies to exacerbate it.