I'm back in the Bay Area now and, well, it's not New York, but it's still surprisingly accessible. Concerts with local bands, free lectures (on tech topics or not), free events at a park or on the beach... No magical subway system though: public transport exists but, especially if you're coming in from out of SF, it's a bit of a pain.

Point being that you can definitely experience a lot either for free or for pretty cheap. But there's no way to get around the high rent, except with a high salary.

I do have some friends who prefer the busses, so it's clearly not clear-cut.

It seems much louder than other subways in cities where I have lived. Have others experienced this?

> especially at off-peak times

Yeah, BART is a much more pleasant experience at off-peak times than anywhere near rush-hour. In my experience, I still find the NL line (at least) uncrowded enough to get a seat any time of day (unless there's significant BART trouble).

Likewise, I live in a culture-free area, but between work and kids and numerous easily affordable vacations to cultural areas, I have no time to go out drinking (which is usually all people mean by "culture" anyway). If, suddenly on the commute home, an art museum fell onto the interstate, I'd merely have to detour around it, I have a little league practice to get to tonight.

I find it ironic that a childhood friend lives in Chicago but can't afford to do anything but scrape by, but as an outsider I can trivially afford to visit and do more in his own hometown than he can afford to do! He does have a much cooler address than I do.

But are you praising the "culture" of an area while your yearly "culture" itinerary is that you went to an art museum and a mid-list concert?

Are you really using the "culture" of your area, or is it just a rationalization to stay where you are?

I would consider it a successful outcome of this message if those of you who live in a "cultural" area resolve to take better advantage of it in the future. I'm not trying to say the "culture" stuff is useless. I'm just saying that people's words and actions seem divergent here, and the worst case outcome in terms of bang-for-the-buck is to pay to live in a high-culture area, and then not use it.

I think that people obey fashion when it comes to living addresses just as much as they obey fashion when it comes to clothing, cars, and so on. No one likes to say that they living in a suburb of a Midwest city, even if that's actually the best decision they could make with their living circumstances.

As somebody who recently moved to the city centre, from a 1hr away suburb I believe this is very much true. My move was motivated in part by the reactions I would get from people when I told them where I lived. I'm glad I moved downtown as I'm closer to work and all the city amenities are never more than a half-hour away, but occasionally I have mixed feelings about my decision as my disposable income has gone down considerably and I'm not putting away into my savings as much as I'd like to.

Yet, at the same time, I yearn to live inside the city.

I'm not fully thought out on this, but somehow I think it's ultimately a status thing. The cool people live in the city, so I want to live in the city.

Sure I would love to live in one of the leafy old neighborhoods in Portland, but we can get there in less than 30 minutes on the weekends and I don't stress over voluntarily driving into the city midweek once in a while. It would be nice to be a bit less car dependent, but having two cars in our family is more a choice of convenience than a necessity.

I do think there is a split between married (with or without kids) and single people. My wife was gone for a couple weeks last month and it got pretty quiet in the evenings. I can see why single people would prefer the city.

Also, people live in big cities for a variety of reasons. One the biggest ones is finding better jobs. If his current job is not paying enough to live by, I think that living in Chicago offers a lot more opportunities for him to get a job that does.

I love museums, but I go once or twice a year. Same with live sports. It doesn't really justify living in a place. Live music is great, although admittedly I don't do that as much as I used to.

One of my favorite cultural activities? Traveling to experience another cultural. Nothing's quite as conducive to that as a low cost of living when I'm not traveling.

It depends on which museum you're talking about. The Museum of Modern Art in Houston generally has month long exhibitions which I love. There is a Museum of Art in Austin which has even more regular events, based on different themes etc. So I definitely do visit museums more than once a year :)

That's kind of a treadmill, though. There's no real point to moving somewhere chasing a better job if any increase in salary is going to be eaten up by extra taxes and living expenses. I could get a job with a substantially higher salary if I moved to SF, but at the end of the month I'd have less money.

You can still find good beer at almost every bar in town, from Anonio's Nutbar to Sliderbar to Rose and Crown and everything in-between. The presence of Stanford makes for a good restaurant and bar scene.

But... It's still a suburb.

The $3m but very unremarkable homes make it a little easier.

It is / is near employment hubs. It offers very little by way of housing options. Hence: housing prices are extreme.

The Warriors are in Oakland (for now)!

Austin, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Orlando compare favorably to San Jose, San Diego, Sacramento.

Just because it's not "high culture" doesn't mean it's not culture.

I use a lot of those amenities. Music is a huge part of my life. I'm a performing jazz musician. My kids participate in the youth symphony. We attend classical music concerts together. (Yeah, my kids are weird). I'd have a very hard time living in a culture desert, and would probably not want to live in the US at all unless it's in one of a very short list of cities.

First, downtown Austin is now actually more expensive than downtown San Diego. When people say "Austin" and "cheap housing" they mean Round Rock, Pflugerville, San Marcos, etc. Many of those places are now an hour or more commute to downtown Austin in horrific traffic that now rivals Los Angeles. When people think "San Diego" they don't mean commuting from Ramona or Temecula (an equivalent hour of horrific commute).

Second, Austin has some culture, but has been working overtime to flush it down the drain. Stevie Ray Vaughn would be an unwelcome, dirty scumbag on the current 6th Street. Medium sized venues (300-1000 people) that launched major music careers are becoming very scarce (I blame smoking bans mostly). And most of the "cultural" catering is to overpaid DINKs (Dual Income--No Kids) who want desperately to be so cool yet complain about the noise from the very places that they moved in next to in order to be cool.

Source: Lived in South Park, a streetcar suburb about 3 miles from downtown, for the last year. Enjoyed SP, but disliked SD.

Also, many people will decry my use of the word "suburb" for a place 3 miles out, but it was originally built as one and the residents have fought tooth and nail to prevent any development that would change its character or increase density. I'm sure they don't mind that their home values have increased massively as a result of these restrictions on building in nearly the only pleasant, walkable neighborhood in a city composed primarily of aphalt hellscape, though.

This is the reason I didn't move there a few years ago. I flew in for the interview, and was stuck in various traffic jams the entire 2 days I was there. The economy there is booming, so it's not like the traffic is coming from a bad place, but I'm not keen on hour-plus commutes.

Saying that you live in Houston when you live near Rice is like saying that you live in Texas when you live in Austin.

Lived experience and countless local articles scream otherwise. Of course, when you compare to NYC and LA, just about everything looks 'affordable'-yet this is the most common refrain to Austin: "It's cheaper than NY".

What city in the US that isn't greater-LA, SF or Seattle isn't?

I used to live in South Central Austin and commute north of 183 to work. When my car broke down I took the bus-no big deal, coming from Chicago I don't have many aspersions to public transit-so long as it works and is relatively safe (or as safe as a city can reasonably make it).

When I say "pick your poison" re: cost, I mean getting from my apartment to my job on time meant waking up 3 hours before shift begins and riding for two hours. Getting off work at 5:30 and not getting home until almost 9 depending on traffic conditions (school year meant having to ride through the UT area, that added another hour).

The "personal cost" adevine mentions here is real and it is painful. You're either going to spend more on gas and vehicular maintenance, or you're going to spend every waking moment not at work sitting on the bus (depending on where you live), or waiting for a bus.

There are a number of good, affordable cities. Baltimore is fantastic for how cheap it is.