It’s not hard to figure out - it was crazy expensive - San Francisco the city is poorly managed - and there are much better places to live in the Bay Area.
Where is this suburb that's an 8th the cost? 8 hours of travel away?
I would say just about anywhere in the Bay Area would be nicer than SF. Cupertino, Campbell, southern San Jose, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Santa Cruz (not quite Silicon Valley but sort of), Alameda, Gilroy, etc. I'd say the only place I'd avoid more than SF is Oakland.
Do you really think that telling one person on Hacker News about a nice spot is going to make that spot stop being nice?
Maybe this whole thread is a mislead and someone has their eyes on the peninsula ;)
I moved to the Tenderloin in SF and I was much happier, it was very lively indeed.
You can very easily live in areas of the city without a car and I have done so. Plenty of places on the Northside - but those places will be somewhat expensive compared to the city average. The good news of course is that Chicago is generally far cheaper than other large cities, so most folks posting on HN can probably find something that fits the bill.
Vast swaths of residential neighborhoods are simply not well serviced by public transit. Especially on the south and west sides where to be blunt, most folks on HN will never visit. These areas look much like the post-WWII suburbs I grew up in elsewhere in the midwest, just slightly more density due to lot lines being closer together.
It really is a tale of two cities here. If you can afford to, you can easily live in one of the most walkable and transit friendly cities in the nation. I posit it's only behind NYC for that. However, if you live just 5 miles away in the "wrong" neighborhood your options will be car or relatively poor bus service.
Of course your definition may be different than mine. My father considers places like St. Louis livable without a car - but I totally disagree. Sure you can make it work, but at ridiculous expense to your time and lifestyle.
I personally bought a place specifically in relation to how close it was to functional rapid transit. I'm privileged enough to do so, but many friends and family simply couldn't afford to live in such areas of the city - if they moved here they would certainly be daily car drivers.