I concede that NYC has the best public transportation in the country, but you must have been living in the sticks in California if you think that you can't find "food, culture, and intelligent, diverse population" there.
The only claim to culture that Mountain View or Cupertino has is being within driving distance of San Francisco.
That's true iff you define culture as opera and symphony and certain kinds of museums.
If your definition includes things that one might find in SF's mission district and/or Chinatown, there's culture all over the southbay. For some definitions, Berkeley is the only place in the bay area that "has culture". For others, Oakland is it.
FWIW, there are reasonable definitions of "culture" that can't be satisfied in the US.
For example, if I want hole-in-the-wall Mexican cuisine and I want some Vietnamese dessert, I might be able to walk from one place to the next, in SF. In SJ accomplishing the same would mean going from somewhere in north San Jose, to then somewhere on Senter road. There's no way to walk it (ok, 2 hours). If I want Cambodian it's another trek across the freeways. So, yes, things are there in the SB, but you have to know where to find them and they can be very far from each other. But, if you like "discovery" of hidden places, the SB has some interesting hidden in plain sight places. They're hidden because most have a very targeted (ethnic) audience and few people outside that audience tend to know about those places, unless intro'd by someone who knows.
That is to say, the 'ethnic' aspects of SF actually have a diverse audience in mind, while in SJ, for example, most of the ethnic aspects are directed to a select audience and thus are less approachable by outsiders. At least that's how I felt about these things when I was in SJ.
To me moving from California to New York for culture makes sense, for a lot of locations in California. Perhaps instead of saying you can't beat New York for culture, I should say I can't beat New York for culture!
That's not what I wrote. I wrote that different folks think that culture means different things, not that those folks have a changing definition of culture.
I get that you like NYC. However, I'll bet that you don't actually take advantage of the culture that you find essential all that often. You're paying for the ability to drop in on a broadway show every day even though you'll likely do it only once every 3-5 years.
I'm glad that you think that you're getting value for your money. How about being respectful of other people's choices wrt their money?
I'm absolutely in favor of other people doing what they like with their money - diversity of entertainment choice is a great thing.
For me that meant the city, where the higher density of customers makes it viable for IRL entertainment suppliers to operate further down the long tail of demand. The things I'm interested in are right down that long tail, so I can understand when rm999 found moving to a city has improved his/her quality of life.
That's true for some people, and for them it's probably not a great idea to pay extra for a theoretical access to things they barely use. On the other hand, when I lived in London I went to see a play 2-3 times a month for the four years I lived there. If I moved back there, the theatre would be major reason why.
PS: Assuming native american cultures are included as part of the US.
There is life outside of the 415.
"Can't beat" is an idiom, it means I think those things are pretty awesome in NYC :)
Can't beat means it sets the standard.