And importantly non-stop flights to more than a handful of destinations from those airports. Living near a major airport rather than a small regional airport can significantly cut the total travel time and cost even with the added inconveniences of large airports.

You mean I can save a couple hundred dollars on my flights if I live somewhere that costs thousands of extra dollars on rent?

For me it's more about the time savings. If you live a short Uber from a major airport, you can hop from your doorstep to most of the continent in a half-day, then enjoy the second half of your day at your destination.

But if you're a 45 minute drive from a smaller airport, you've got to spend time dealing with parking, then padded layovers, and often by the time you get to your destination you're kinda wiped, so you end up burning a whole day of PTO just to move from point A to point B. Long-weekend trips aren't even really viable.

No, generally airports associated with cities are not in the cities. SFO isn't even in San Francisco county.

> No, generally airports associated with cities are not in the cities. SFO isn't even in San Francisco county.

Not being in the County of San Francisco is not a different or more significant fact than not being in the City of San Francisco, they are not merely geographically coextensive but the same entity, the City and County of San Francisco; which has a mayor as it's executive (like other CA cities) but, instead of a City Council, a Board of Supervisors (like other CA counties) as it's legislature.