SF? I can see the plus side–no extreme climate, surrounded by natural beauty, tolerant and diverse culture, great parks, and an unreal mass transit system. I understand you also have public health care, which is a plus for most people. You’re also withing spitting distance of Stanford and Berkeley, which is a big plus for a pointy-head like me. OTOH, you do have to be a millionaire (and then some) to own a house, you’re surrounded by homelessness, crime (well, not as much as you’d expect, but it’s not a “safe” city by any means), and poverty. You don’t really have a summer, and, surprisingly enough, you don’t have the public venues for art and the like one might expect. Also, the neighborhoods have been torn apart by gentrification at a rate probably unparalelled outside of Dubai.
SF is by far the best place in America if you’re living for a culture it embraces. One of my best friends is a polyamorous genderqueer/lesbian with a strong taste for BDSM and crossdressing; she will have to be violently pried from the city. If you’re lifestyle is a little more mainstream, the minuses associated with living there will probably wear on you in short order.
Considering San Francisco for the designation of “Best City in America” is probably a good exercise in showing how futile such titles may be. For some, the “city that waits to die” is the only place they would live. For others–dare I say most–it’s a nice place to visit, but not a place to live.
I lived in Colorado Springs (right in the shadow of Cheyenne Mt. and Pike’s Peak) for the better part of two years, and never got tired of looking out the window in the morning and seeing them.
San Jose is far better than San Francisco (except for “culture,” it is pretty boring around here). Close to beaches, close enough to mountains*, close to forests. It’s even close to San Francisco, since that’s where so many good restaurants and concerts are. Perfect weather, etc.
I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else until I retire to Maui.
*: I mean actual mountains, not those hills that East Coasters pretend are mountains.
San Francisco has real beaches. The water is icy, contains great white sharks, and there’s a killer undertow on the ocean side, but they are real beaches.
The greater Boston area is my adopted home mostly against my will but I am stuck here until my daughters get out of high school in 14 years. I am pretty hard on Boston but let me give my opinion based on criteria given in the OP.
Employment - pretty good if you work in technology, education, finance, biotech. Pay is above average but cost of living is a Top 3 with NYC and San Fransisco and New York being the other two. More pay here still doesn’t match the cost of living penalty compared to the rest of the country. You can live at a much higher standard of living elsewhere for less money.
Entertainment - Good. It is a contender for #1 sports city in the U.S., there are lots of museums, theater district, and lots of other things.
Airports - Three major ones with Logan (terrible), Providence (great) and Manchester (great).
Hospitals - Clear strength here. Even one of the many world-class hospitals that Boston has would be a selling point for most cities.
Education choices - Boston blows everyone else out of the water on this one. There are about 100 colleges and universities in the greater Boston area. Even the 2nd tier Boston schools like Boston University, Boston College, Brandeis, Tufts and others rank nationally but they have Harvard and MIT to compete with locally.
Cost of housing - ridiculous but at least a little better than San Francisco.
Commute - Boston driving is the 5th professional sport and not for the faint of heart. It is hard to tell if individual drivers are drunk, driving geniuses, or it is their first time behind the wheel. It tends to play out the same.
Proximity to places like beaches and mountains - Technically good on both although I never understood the appeal of Cape Cod. Freezing my ass off in a house rental that cost $2000 a week in July and then being stuck in traffic for hours while you try to go back home isn’t my idea of a good time. The Northern New England mountains in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont are beautiful however. Those states aren’t very far away and would be some of the best places on earth if it wasn’t so cold most of the time. The people are different (better) too.
Friendliness - notoriously bad in the city proper and the more blue collar suburbs. Where I live in the outer western suburbs, people are just polite but standoffish.
I love the general area where I live but Boston proper and the inner suburbs still rub me the wrong way. I say it is a city of outstanding positives just a little more than offset by the atrocious negatives.
Believe when I say I am not trolling or trying to insult Chicago at all. That is where this board is based and I have had some good times there. I honestly don’t know what people see in the place though. I wouldn’t even mention it except people always mention it in conversations like these and I have no idea whatsoever why. It has some big buildings for sure but a whole lot of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture (that is a personal thing I am trying to work through with no success), Chicago style food is downright odd if not plain bad, pockets of poverty are devastating, and Chicago sprawls like no tomorrow. It doesn’t even retain any Midwestern charm.
What on God’s green earth is so great about Chicago that isn’t done better elsewhere?
It is like the old joke on how Chicago got its start:
A group of people in New York said, “I’m really enjoying the crime and the poverty here, but it just isn’t cold enough. Let’s start another one on the prairie and see if we can fix that”. Chicago isn’t New York though and can’t compete with it. You don’t get any points for being a secondary version of NYC.
Honestly, besides the usual list of museums of tall buildings, what sets Chicago apart. New York and Los Angeles have their something. New Orleans and Miami have something. What does Chicago have?
I think it is a great walking city and great mass transit city. These are big pluses. The people help make the city and I seem to like the general attitude of Chicagoans.
Boston’s is perhaps the worst city to drive in after LA. Its mass transit is not really good at all (trains should not stop at red lights people) and it is only an OK walking city, not a great one. Honestly Minneapolis is a better walking city then Boston. I mentioned SF above.
Mainly because it’s not full of New Yorkers and Los Angelinos. And we don’t have shitty streets and garbage everywhere (like New York) or crushingly high taxes and lots of limousine liberal douchebags (like LA).
It’s won many most livable city awards, so I’m not alone in thinking this. It’s inexpensive, it has world class hospitals and universities; the arts are incredible due to 19th and 20th century philanthropists (the symphony poached Chicago’s director), the Steelers have 6 Superbowl rings and the Pens are pretty damn good too. Shadyside and Lawrenceville are vibrant, cool neighborhoods and still affordable - you can get some ethnic food at a non hole-in-the-wayy for $10. Lots of places are BYOB so dinner out is really affordable. Squirrel Hill and Regent Square have great food - everything from Israeli to Indian and French bistro food. You can get a house for $100k in a really decent neighborhood and be ten minutes from downtown. If you want a blue-ribbon suburban public schools, that’ll be $150 k for a 3bed/1bath or $170k for 3bed/2bath. It’s a notoriously friendly city. Another upside is it’s perennially unpopular, so housing prices will stay affordable.
The downsides are the beaches aren’t close by and the weather is pretty crappy. City government is full of machine politicians who aren’t into solving the looming pension crisis.
I wish. I would be all over NYC if Studio 54 was still hopping. The only exposure I got to big haired women with polyester camel toes that would make your grandmother blush was through Sesame Street.
I could understand this point of view if it weren’t coming from someone who lived in Chicago of all places. I have been there many times and am very fond of the place, but at least the garbage here actually gets taken away. Chicago, for all of its merits, is a colder version of Queens with a lot more fat people. And the drivers are somehow even worse.
NYC is not particularly livable. People don’t come here because they want an easy, cost-effective, stable life. It’s obviously not for everyone. But for me and at least a few million others, it’s definitely the best.
I’m partial to Honolulu, but I don’t think the entire island of Oahu comes to 2 million people. The city proper is only 1 million now I think, but that fits my definition of a city.