Thanks for clarifying what you meant by &quot;the upshot&quot;! :)<p>From what I understand, folks in NYC can deal with hour-long commutes because of the reliability and continuous operation of the area&#x27;s public transit systems. Perhaps I am mistaken? The public transit situation in the Bay Area is far more dire.<p>Because I have next-to-no knowledge of the character of each of NYC&#x27;s boroughs, please excuse any such inaccuracies in the following hypothetical alternate-universe scenario:<p>Imagine that you live in The Bronx, and work and party in  Manhattan. In order to get home from Manhattan in the late evening you either have to<p>* Be on the subway before midnight (because the subway shuts down from shortly after midnight till 04:00 <i>every</i> day of the week) [This assumes that you&#x27;re lucky enough to live within walking distance of a subway stop] (the same caveats apply to the commuter heavy rail system),<p>* Hail and pay for a cab&#x2F;Uber&#x2F;Whatever, then spend 30-&gt;45 minutes inside of it,<p>* Or, -if you&#x27;re spectacularly lucky- spend 45-&gt;90 minutes inside a bus, then walk for another 15-&gt;45 minutes to your apartment.<p>Your commute to work will be somewhat awful. Both the subway and the heavy rail is not infrequently late. The subway runs once every twenty minutes. [0] During rush hour, the heavy rail runs once every 15 minutes to once every 30. Outside of rush hour, it runs runs <i>once</i> per hour. Either system <i>will</i> be unable to get you to work at <i>least</i> twice a year due to service outages. Once you disembark from the subway or heavy rail, pray that your connecting bus is <i>actually</i> on time. If it&#x27;s not, and your destination is within a 30 minute walk, you&#x27;re almost certainly better off walking than waiting for the next bus.<p>The absolute <i>best</i> one-way doorstep-to-doorstep commute you can reasonably hope for here is 30 minutes, [1] but then -because of proximity to a subway station that&#x27;s very close to Manhattan- your rent is <i>almost</i> the same as living in Manhattan.<p>If you decide to drive, remember that <i>everyone</i> wants to get into Manhattan, and that there are exactly <i>three</i> roads that serve the borough. If you don&#x27;t like sitting in traffic for literal hours, make sure that you have a schedule that allows you to avoid the two+ hour stretch of rush hour traffic. Also, pray that there&#x27;s not yet another accident on the damn road.  ;) Also, make sure you can afford $3600&#x2F;year in garage fees, as street parking is effectively impossible.<p>As an aside: I know that most of this can be considered #firstworldproblems complaining. I spent most of my life in both rural <i>and</i> urban Alabama. The best public transit available in the state was a few bus lines in Huntsville that took folks from downtown to the indoor shopping mall and back. ;) I <i>know</i> that the Bay Area has far better services for car-less people than most parts of the country. My reason for explaining all of this is to illustrate what I understand to be the vast gulf separating Bay Area public transit and public transit in many other major metropolitan areas, but NYC in particular.<p>[0] If you&#x27;re lucky enough to live near a subway station that has multiple lines pass through it, this interval will be smaller.<p>[1] <i>My</i> absolute best one-way doorstep-to-doorstep commute time [2] was 90 minutes. My typical time was more like 120-&gt;150 minutes.<p>[2] Admittedly, <i>from</i> SF <i>to</i> a workplace ten to fifteen minutes away from a heavy rail station in San Mateo. However, reversing the commute direction would have had little-to-no impact on its total time, and <i>surprisingly</i> little impact on the rent I was paying.