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Um, what about the corrupt mayor and city council?  What about all the filth?  Damn, I took my friends daughter to go see Star Wars in digital cause she's a big fan.  Walking back to BART from the theater I had to walk inbetween her and a homeless man taking a piss and shit on Market street.  Just what you want a child to see.  Yeah, great place to live.  And public transit SUCKS big time.

Plus every city they list is a liberal center for the state.

I guess they didn't take the high AIDS rate into account when ranking Austin.  Austin isn't bad if you're away from the UT campus.  It's funky, but in a decent way.  A lot of liberals and neuvo hippies, but livable.  I'd love to move back up there, but right now their job market sucks.

Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

San Francisco has some great neighborhoods, it's just that it's so expensive it's out of reach for most people. And you can live your entire life there and never have to deal with the homeless, as they tend to hang around Market Street or the tourist locations where they can panhandle money out of people.

The political aspects are bad, but they don't affect as many people as one would imagine.

SF is nice, just don't live in the city. I do like the night life. Where else can you party till 6AM. I love being able to go out @ midnight and still have 6hrs to party. A city where you can have any type of food you want. A city where you can see any type of entertainment you want. I miss that place. Just don't want to live there.

If I were to have a perfect place, with would be a combination of S.F. flare, SoCal scenery, and TX politics. Does this place exist?

I won't comment about any other part of your rant, but dude if you think SF's public transit sucks, try Tucson's.  At least you can get somewhere on SF's.

Also, I concur - the only cities listed were liberal/socialist.  WTF?

I read the survey too.

Folks, take a look at the communities listed by the surveyors.  Every single one of these towns, both large and small, is a bastion of liberalism.

The surveyors achieved the results they desired by considering the metrics their analysis through their liberal eyes.  I suspect that IF the criteria were altered, to included say...certain laws to carry a concealed weapon, those results might be different.

I have lived or visited in several of the towns listed and each has a very lefty bias...and several are university towns.  For example, San Luis Obispo is the home of Cal Poly.
San Francisco has a couple of institutions of higher learning within a fairly close radius that lean a bit to the left...say USF, Berkley, Santa Cruz,  San Jose State.  These are not what you'd call centrist communities.

Santa Fe, NM, along with Taos is the heart of the artsy-fartsy set. (It sure is a pretty town though.)

Madison WI?  University of Wisconsin.

Boulder, CO?  CU.  Great football town...and great skiing for the tony set.

Austin TX?  UT...or as my good Bud the Aggie calls them, The Teasippers!  (With ALL due respect to my UT friends and fellow AR posters!)

BOSTON!!!  Do I need to go there?  Teddy Kennedy...Barney Fag (err...sorry about that; Barney Frank!)...Harvard...BC...Marty Meehan...BU...and the MTA?  (I better stop here...before I puke!)

Also, note some of the negatives that you and I might consider to be VERY good reasons to live in these places that the surveyors/writers merely poo-poo...like high cost of living in SF...high taxes in just about all of the venues...you get the idea.

Bottom line, this is a deeply flawed poll.

If you really wish to know where the nice places are to live in America, take a look at the "Places Rated Almanac" and the "Retirement Places Almanac".  You can pick them up in any book store.  The authors have no bias nor axes to grind...they just report the facts.  We used them both before moving from the Left Coast seven years ago.  After a bunch of research, we chose the small town they rated number two in America for that year.  They were right.

I've lived in Contra Costa County which is about 40 minutes east of SF for about 30 years now.
We would go into the city for the bars when we were under age and always say what a shit hole the area was.
Last year my wife who sells commercial insurance part time got employee of the year and recieved a free weekend in the city with a fancy hotel, shows and expensive restaurants
I got to say it was a good time.
One of your dinner tabs was $450 for the two of us and I don't even drink.
You got to have "bank" to live good in the city.