I don't know what you're replying to, really. I was pointing out that when GP found it unfair for people to be called spoiled for wanting to live in the centre of SF because the rest of the Bay Area is somehow a desolate wasteland where you'll need to "endure" the horros of 10-18 minute drives, that was pretty much demonstrating exactly why some of us thinks people complaining about that are spoiled.

As such I won't address most of the points of your reply, as I happen to agree with most of them - they just aren't very relevant to the point of comment. Again: I'm not arguing it wouldn't be better with more public transport, nor that Bay Area's public transport is good enough, nor that it's not more convenient if you have a car. I am arguing, however, that there are large areas of the Bay Area outside of SF that are perfectly liveable even for someone like me without a drivers license, and that a large part of the reason why people whine about the cost of living in SF is exactly that they are spoilt. If it's possible to live in these areas without a car, it is certainly possible to live very well in these places with one.

> sure, when you're only visiting, you don't have kids, etc. Many people aren't amenable to having a minimum half hour walk to get anywhere, and if your grocery store is anything but close by, you're in trouble if you don't go shopping every few days (having a grocery store every few blocks is one of my favorite things about high density living situations).

Some points to this:

While there are certainly parts of the Bay Area where I'd be far more isolated, I don't live within a short walk of a big grocery store or a train station or most other amenities. I have 15 minutes to the nearest proper grocery store, 20 minutes to the nearest train station, though there is a bus route reasonably nearby that is faster if I hit it on time. This is in one of the most densely populated parts of England, in a London suburb that is indeed zoned not all that differently from many Bay Area towns, with huge areas of single residence houses or terraced houses (so one or two shared walls, but still one resident per plot of land). There are huge areas of the Bay Area that are no worse to live in in terms of amenities. Sure, you're more likely to have to resort to a car for commuting.

In terms of kids, we have a 3 year old son. To pick him up from nursery after work, it takes me about 2 hours to get home: Two trains + two buses to get to the nursery, plus two buses to get home. I know how much effort having a kid adds to any kind of transport situation. We frequently take him to a part 20-25 minutes walk away. On foot, again, meaning when he gets too tired to walk, we carry him. I might get a drivers license. No so much for my day to day situation, but to be able to take day trips etc. to places that are a pain to get to by public transport. But living this way works perfectly fine.

So yes, some people might not be "amenable" to living this way, but unless they're old or disabled, the are perfectly able to to do so and still have an enjoyable life. I'm not saying people should opt to live the way I do, but I am saying that complaining about the cost of living if they instead choose to live somewhere with ridiculous house prices just to avoid having to walk, cycle or drive a bit longer to get places does make them seem spoiled to me.

> No, it won't work unless you're paying hundreds for a cab, you get a friend to drive you, or you head home at like 6 in the evening.

Well, it did work for us, so clearly it does. And no, we did none of those. Instead we did what I've done in many other cities in the world out of "necessity" if you want to stay out late: Stay out long enough to have a reasonably short wait to take the bus home, which is what we did. (Incidentally, if you don't want that, it's still far cheaper to find a cheap motel near public transport in SF and sleep it off until things start running than it is to take a cab to places even much closer than Santa Cruz).

The Greyhound ride to Santa Cruz was obnoxiously unnecessarily long and a bizarre experience (checking in to a bus?!? and a half hour break in the middle... wow). It sucked, other than for the novelty. But so does the alternatives in a lot of other places including many with substantially higher population density than the Bay Area. Again, the point is that expecting quick and short transit to everywhere and everything is being spoiled. There are few places you can do that outside of major world cities like London. Even London isn't all that great in this respect if you don't live "just right" (I'm "lucky" - there are hourly night buses to within about 20 minutes walk from where I live). I grew up outside Oslo, and frequently ended up spending 30-40 minutes to walk to the station followed by 3+ hours in sub-zero temperatures after clubs closed in Oslo before the first trains started to run. That was normal, unless you wanted to spend extortionate amounts on a cab (far higher rates than in the Bay Area for similar distances) which I couldn't afford then.

> Sure, but that's a pretty useless definition of spoiled; essentially any non-utilitarian aspect of living would fall under it.

No, it's a definition of spoiled that compares your expectations with the expectations of people in similar situations elsewhere, where these kinds of obstacles are just as common, yet somehow wast amounts of people manage just fine. When people complain that they pay far too much despite being able to afford to live somewhere most people can't and opt to do that rather than moving to somewhere that's still vastly better than what most people can afford to free up spare cash, then, yes, that's being spoilt.

> And this shows the real reason behind your post: you were staying in a hotel on El Camino :) Head up into one of the neighborhoods nearby and suddenly nothing is nearby.

I know perfectly well that there are places in the Bay Area where a car is a perfect necessity. An ex manager of mine lived in the middle of the forest near Santa Cruz, for example. That there are places that are extremely hard to live in without a car is entirely besides the point.

I stayed in hotels on El Camino a couple of times, yes. But most of the times I did not. You might argue that if I just had a bit further to walk to get to El Camino, I'd change my mind. Maybe I would. But that still leaves a few million people who live in areas within walking distance from enough stuff. Even so, walking distance was not the main point, as note above. The main point was that seemingly considering it a pain to live in these kind of places is being spoilt.