# U.S./Canada cities/town which you can live HAPPILY without a car. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 20, 2010, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-canada-cities-town-which-you-can-live-happily-without-a-car/536697 "2010-04-20T01:13:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![put\_down\_the\_sabre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/da6949/32.png) [@put\_down\_the\_sabre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/put_down_the_sabre)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-canada-cities-town-which-you-can-live-happily-without-a-car/536697/41 "2010-04-21T17:12:00Z")
They often claim that Chapel Hill/Carrboro (NC) is liveable without a car. In my experience, that isn’t true: sure, you can scrape by without a car. But that means missing out on a lot of what the area has to offer, and a lot of early nights – especially if you live in the horrible sprawling apartments where most residents do. I’ve been here 2.5 years and never owned a car, but I find myself using the cars of others more and more, otherwise I’ll be here 6 years without trying out most of the cool stuff in the area. I also live centrally (easy walk from college). pdts ---
**Author:** ![bink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/439d5e/32.png) [@bink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bink)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-canada-cities-town-which-you-can-live-happily-without-a-car/536697/42 "2010-04-21T17:34:12Z")
Just moved to Portland, OR after decades in Jersey City and NYC. It’s not quite as easy as those places, but it’s pretty darn doable if you live near a good bus line or MAX or downtown. And the DMV experience when getting a non-driver ID was magnitudes better than in NY or NJ. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-canada-cities-town-which-you-can-live-happily-without-a-car/536697/43 "2010-04-21T19:44:52Z")
I’m doing just fine in Santa Fe, NM without a car. You obviously need to be willing to walk or bike a bit, but it’s quite possible (and at certain times of day, I can get across town faster on my bike than by car). ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-canada-cities-town-which-you-can-live-happily-without-a-car/536697/44 "2010-04-21T19:57:46Z")
I’ve been here in Chicago for 3 months now and I’ve only wished my car was in the same state as me when it comes to my oft-desired and always-aborted trips to Ikea or Costco. ---
**Author:** ![Carl\_Corey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Carl\_Corey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carl_Corey)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-canada-cities-town-which-you-can-live-happily-without-a-car/536697/45 "2010-04-21T20:11:39Z")
Philadelphia works pretty well too. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-canada-cities-town-which-you-can-live-happily-without-a-car/536697/46 "2010-04-21T20:43:37Z")
> [@Darryl\_Lict](#): > > San Francisco. Definitely. My wife is from there, and we visit the city at least a couple of times a year. We often drive up, but rarely use the car while we are there. The buses, streetcars, and BART are great, and it’s also an excellent walking city. > [@Max\_the\_Immortal](#): > > I lived in downtown Vancouver for about four years without a car, and never wanted one. I lived near the corner of Nelson and Bute for just about a year, and it was awesome. A few blocks from Robson, a few blocks from Davie, and not much further to Denman. Everything you need within a ten-minute walk. > [@VunderBob](#): > > San Diego. I’m no so sure. It would depend on exactly what part of the city you live in, and where you work. Public transit isn’t great except on a few specific corridors, and the city’s budget crisis has recently led to significant cutbacks in the bus schedule. I guess if you live and work in the downtown/Banker’s Hill area, that would be fine, but anywhere further afield becomes quite difficult. We live in the North Park/Normal Heights area, which is pretty urban for San Diego, and we’d find it very difficult to get by without a car. We do have stuff within walking distance, and we have a small, independent supermarket right near our place, which is very handy, but many of the places we like to go (Trader Joe’s, Northgate Mexican supermarket, 99 Ranch Chinese supermakret, etc.) are all “freeway close” and would be very difficult without a car. Also, one of the greatest things about living in this city is the beaches, and getting there from our place is an ordeal without a car. > [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > By the way, a question - does anyone know if Baltimore is liveable without a car? Specifically, the area around Johns Hopkins Hospital. I lived in Baltimore for about 8 years. About half the time, i had no car, and for the other half, my wife and i shared a car with a friend of ours. We lived up near the Hopkins main Homewood campus, not the hospital, and there was enough stuff in the area that a car was not essential. Still, if you want to get out and see the city, a car is very useful, because Baltimore is a city of neighborhoods, and traveling between them is not easy without a car. The bus service is pretty bad, the subway is almost useless, and even the light rail only has a fairly limited coverage. The area around the hospital, in East Baltimore, really is a pretty dodgy area. You need to be very careful walking around there. Most people i knew who worked at the hospital tended to live up near the main campus, and use the Hopkins free shuttle bus, which runs between the Homewood campus and the hospital all day. You could also live in the Mount Vernon area, just north of downtown, and catch the shuttle or a regular city bus out to the hospital It’s only a 5-10 minute ride. Mount Vernon is quite nice, with some good restaurants, cafes, and bars, and there are even some grocery stores opening up there now. The Patterson Park area is also not too far from the hospital, and is a nice area. Baltimore is a poor city, though, with lots of drug addiction and crime, so you need to be a bit careful wherever you live. Even up around the Hopkins campus, armed hold-ups in the street were a weekly occurrence. Don’t walk alone at night. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-canada-cities-town-which-you-can-live-happily-without-a-car/536697/47 "2010-04-24T23:01:41Z")
> [@put\_down\_the\_sabre](#): > > They often claim that Chapel Hill/Carrboro (NC) is liveable without a car. > > In my experience, that isn’t true: sure, you can scrape by without a car. But that means missing out on a lot of what the area has to offer, and a lot of early nights – especially if you live in the horrible sprawling apartments where most residents do. I think that’s true of most places in the world. Probably in a big city with a good mass transit system the “scraping by” will be a lot more fun, but chances are there will still be attractions nearby that you can conveniently reach only by car. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-canada-cities-town-which-you-can-live-happily-without-a-car/536697/48 "2010-04-24T23:33:56Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > We lived near Dupont Circle for a while and the shopping options were quite bad. We tended to drive out to the 'burbs for that. I lived two blocks from the Circle and did not own or use a car. I could walk to plenty of grocery shopping and restaurants, and reach any other destination I needed in the city by bike and subway. I didn’t even need buses or taxis. [Here](http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=grocery+near+20036&fb=1&gl=us&hq=grocery&hnear=20036&ei=mX_TS-yjKYXW8QTbmZG2Dw&sa=X&oi=local_group&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CB8QtgMwAA) is grocery shopping near Dupont, for example. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-canada-cities-town-which-you-can-live-happily-without-a-car/536697.md?page=2)