After all, it's the city you can live without owning
cars in the United States.
After all, it's the city you can live without owning
cars in the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_most_...
And if you don't need a car to commute, it is weekends that are mostly the issue. Of course, people can always rent but that gets to be a hassle if it's every weekend or every other weekend. It also gets back to culture. As an adult, being that person in a group who always needs a ride gets old after a while.
You're also correct about the shuttle buses. Those were unheard of when I first started working at a computer company on 495 in the 80s. Boston and Cambridge, as well as attitudes about city living, have changed a lot in the past 2-3 decades.
When I first moved back to the area after grad school, some people I knew lived in the city but not many. It certainly wasn't the norm.
You can certainly live in Boston, say, without a car but many/most of the tech jobs are out in the suburbs as are, most likely, many of your friends. As a result, most people will find that not owning a car becomes limiting at some point.
(This is probably less true than it used to be. If nothing else, services like Zipcar make it easier to drive out to the suburbs for a party or whatever. And more people of a certain demographic are probably clustering in the city after school. But move forward a few years and most people will want the mobility provided by a car.)