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I'm still surprised you were surprised about Denver. But I'm glad you are thinking about coming here. I think it has a lot of what you want, especially in the area of walkable neighborhoods with restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores, etc.
There are many cities that have transit that would enable one to live without a car - but what about *vibrancy*??
...like higher density and street life - and not just in select neighborhoods, but overall. You know, a lot of street activity with a large portion of the population doing many things on foot, thereby rendering a large area full of life and activity?
By the way, if cost is the true reason the OP stays away from the big cities, I just have to say that one can find safe affordable housing in Astoria, Queens (great street life, don't need a car, 20 minutes from Midtown by subway). Chicago presents a wide variety of options as well.
I was recently in St-Louis, and it does have some very beautiful affordable older architecture/housing, along with decent public transit. However, generally speaking, the streets are not full of life save for a few specific areas. Other cities have this same problem (Pittsburgh comes to mind).
For real street vibrancy, I would think (but I am not 100% sure) that NYC, Chi-town, Philly, DC, Bos, and SF lead the way. I takes a lot of density for that to happen.
A lot of cities have public transportation. How about St. Louis? The Metro is pretty new and seems to work pretty well. There's the MetroLink (train) and the MetroBus. The MetroLink is $2 each way last I checked. And there are older neighborhoods that still have old houses in good shape. The city metro is about 2.8 mil and the city is about 350k. The public schools aren't great, but obviously that's not an issue for you. There are lots of places to eat and shop. Italian food on The Hill. You could probably find just about any kind of food you'd want in St. Louis. The city is known for Toasted (Fried) Ravioli, Gooey Butter Cake, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, and thin-crust pizza with provel cheese (Imo's is good).
Moderator cut: no links to similar forums please...against the site TOS
Houses and condos are pretty affordable in St. Louis. You can usually have a nice downtown condo for $175k or less, and a house probably also. Here's some maps of MetroLink's services: System Maps (http://www.metrostlouis.org/MetroBus/SystemMap.asp - broken link)
::drools::
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