I lived in the Boston area for five years and it was a great experience overall, it's quite walkable. The one thing I could never quite get used to was public transit taking longer than walking! You often had a choice of walking for 20 minutes or waiting 15 minutes for a 6 minute bus ride. (Tip: in winter, walking isn't just faster, it feels much warmer too.)

This really confused my Mexico City brain. Here in Mexico City public transit is horribly crowded but faster than walking. The subway is usually faster even than driving, which makes sense because you're not in our terrible traffic.

I guess part of the problem in Boston is that there just aren't enough riders: after waiting 10 minutes for a bus it wasn't even full! Here in Mexico City a more typical waiting period is 5 minutes and the bus is usually packed. I bet in Boston it's just not economically viable to run transit more frequently. Although maybe more people would opt for public transit if it were more frequent?

Anyway, I do recommend living Boston for a few years even with its wonky public transit. It's very pretty and has plenty of character.