What is it about the bay area that attracts everyone? What is so bad about Southern California? It seems to have jobs galore and good weather almost all year.
So does SFO. Don't all airports in the US use TSA?
Also, literally every other city you mentioned has Uber available. Speaking specifically to Seattle, we also have Lyft and the other "popular" transportation-as-an-app services available.
See: http://www.flysfo.com/about-sfo/safety-security and http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/11/airports-who-opt-out-of-tsa-scre...
All US airports use TSA.
That said, I haven't been treated any better by Covenant Security's (the contractor for SFO, aka "TEAM SFO" as you see on their shirts) people than I have been by actual TSA employees elsewhere. Seems like a nominal difference to me.
For this reason, London, Boston, Chicago, and New York are effectively ruled out for me as places to live for a large enough chunk of the year.
I don't really like Seattle very much. Their airport uses TSA. The employers in the area that are within walking distance of any of the places I would like to live don't greatly excite me either.
San Francisco meets a lot of special requirements that are hard to meet: -Very walkable -Decent transportation options (Uber) -Temperate -Good collection of employers -Empirical data appears to show a great number of interesting people
I don't think I've read a single pro-San Francisco blog, and even if I did, someone's opinion about San Francisco would only factor into a small part of my decisions to live here.