So where is it?
Where can you live outside of SF that you don't need a car and can live a normal adult lifestyle?
Where can you live outside of SF that you don't need a car and can live a normal adult lifestyle?
Car-ownership-hostile != "walkable". Using Lyft/Uber isn't "walking".
Anyway, as to your question: parts of Sacramento, Auburn, Carson City, Eugene, Bend, and Boise all qualify, and that'slimiting to cities I know firsthand. Other cities that I hear this from others include Salem, SLC, ...
Much depends on what you consider to be "normal adult lifestyle". If one's definition of that includes walking through waste and needles to the Folsom St. Fair, SF probably does have a monopoly there.
And, given where I live, my medical, grocery, and a significant chunk of my social needs are truly within walking distance. The only one that isn't is work, and that would be accessible via public transit if I was willing to compromise on commute times a bit (or if I changed employers/offices).
Carson City has 4 bus routes serving 150 square miles, San Francisco has close to 100 serving less than 50. Those aren't remotely comparable.
Disliking public transit is fine,
The parent comment asserted walkability. If your environment is walkable, that means you don't need transit/carshare for everyday needs.
Carson City has 4 bus routes
Carson City has a walk score of 34 (although apparently there's a 4 block area in downtown that gets up to the mid 70s). SF has an average of 86. My apartment scores 99. Like I said, there isn't a genuine comparison to be had.
Not because you live within walking distance of work, which almost nobody does. That definition of "walkable" would be so tiny to render it almost meaningless.
Muni and Bart do make it possible to get around most of SF
BART cuts one diagonal swath through the SF core only, and it doesn't even connect directly to Caltrain in SF county. It's hardly the Underground.
L transferring to the KT? It doesn't even require a bus.
>BART cuts one diagonal swath through the SF core only, and it doesn't even connect directly to Caltrain in SF county. It's hardly the Underground.
Indeed, I'm not suggesting transit in SF (or the bay area as a whole) is perfect. Far from it. But compared to anywhere else west of the Mississippi (and most of the places east of it), there's nowhere better.
Things that I do within two blocks of the flat I live in:
- get groceries
- go to a bakery
- go to one of three coffee shops
- go to one of ten or so restaurants
- go to a comic book store
- go to a game store
- go to a pub
- get my hair cut
- go to the dentist
My two kids, both under school age, at this point can safely walk with me to any of these activities, and, except for the dentist, they often do and quite enjoy it.
I could walk a bit further, but usually bike, and occasionally take transit, to my office, and to literally everything else in my life except the following:
- Trips out of town
- An occasional visit to a Lowes on the other side of town
That’s the bar I’m aiming for.
Note 1, I’m not talking about Manhattan. There’s almost nothing over three stories for several dozen blocks around me, this is all just really ordinary small/medium scale stuff from circa 1900.
And note 2, you asked how many people “really live like that,” and as best I can tell in San Francisco the answer is somewhere between 50 and 90% of the ~million residents. (I don’t know how good every neighborhood is, and I think some are less convenient than mine, but mine is pretty ordinary for SF.)
Even if you are already at a FAANG in Silicon Valley, you will likely get your salary adjusted down by the standard amount if you move somewhere else. You'd actually have more luck avoiding a pay cut at a startup because they almost always have less rigorous HR policies than FAANGs.