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I will be leaving Cincinnati soon and am really considering moving to one of these cities. My goal is to live somewhere I can use public transportation, ride a bike, or walk and not feel deprived. I want a true urban experience that is as close to the European experience you can get in the U.S.
I have ruled out some cities in the South like Birmingham and Memphis because while technically you can live without a car in those cities, you still need a car for the ideal experience and you do feel deprived if you don't have one.
Right now, I've narrowed it down to these cities.
San Francisco
Boston
Portland
Seattle
New York City
Washington DC
Philadelphia
Chicago
Los Angeles
Minneapolis
I'm still months away from this move but I'm starting to plan now. Another concern is the job market. I will likely be moving without employment and want to live somewhere where I can find employment relatively quickly. I don't want to do this and then end up back here after a few months.
Most of New York, Chicago, DC, and Boston (from the cities on the list I know something about) are easy enough to live in car-free. But those four are extremely expensive, moderately expensive, somewhat expensive, and still somewhat expensive, respectively. Mass transit is an attraction for many people and so the cities that are best at it tend to be costly.
But moving without a job or a place to stay can indeed be risky, so depending on your skills, I'd look for the job first and go to where it seems you can land one that pays at least enough for you live with a roommate. Better yet, if you have a friend or relative you can crash with in any of those places, go there and then look for work. After all, landlords are not keen on renting to the unemployed. Being broke and/or homeless in any big city is, as you can imagine, not good. Not good at all.
Maybe easier to say which are hardest without a car...? LA and Mpls would get my vote; also just got back from another trip to Portland, which is surprisingly hard to get around without a car.
New York is obviously king of car-free living here. Massive and comprehensive public transit system and superior walkability are the "drivers" of that.
DC, SF, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago are all in the next same relative "tier" of car-free living. All have excellent walkability and robust public transit accessibility/usability (perhaps with some slight strengths/weaknesess in each case), but not quite on the level of New York in terms of consistency and scale throughout each respective city.
Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, and to a slightly lesser extent, LA, would comprise the final tier of this list. All have made impressive efforts (particularly Seattle of late) to become less car dependent cities, despite not being "legacy" cities of the "Big 6" mentioned above. But the transit cohesion and walkability in each is still a bit more of a work in progress.
Whenever mighty NYC is left in.... and especially in a poll. Expect it to win. Unless asking the cleanest city or for a sprawling city. Most threads leave it out for just this reason. You would see less New Yorkers posting it wins.... if left out, being a obvious winner because of in Manhattan especially. You just can't have most people having a car. It lacks the buildings with garages for tenants and garages in general for its huge density.
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