Great public transportation, bike friendly etc.
thanks.

What kind of citiy do you have in mind? I mean climate wise, size, region, culturally & politically, job opportunities, etc.

I think great public transportation is a bit of a tough one in most parts of the US, but if you're talking bike-friendly culture and/or good bike infrastructure, I have these (not very original) suggestions:

1. Boulder, CO (not that much public transport, except to the Denver airport; very good bike infrastructure; bike culture so accepted no one even discusses it)
2. Denver, CO (Light rail in early stages of development; excellent bike infrastructure; less expensive than other places on this list, and just as nice as Portland and Seattle, if you don't mind living really far away from water; pretty flat, with good weather 9 months a year)
3. Portland (Portlandia describes this city as a place where young people go to retire)
4. Seattle (Decent, but not great, bus system; bike infrastructure is mediocre but improving; local culture very supportive of bike use, esp. in-city, but also in most suburbs; lots of hills)
5. San Francisco (Good public transport, in my experience; very nice weather; surprisingly bike-friendly; you'd better be rich as F*** if you want to live in-city, or at least be willing to share housing; really steep hills)

I would add Sacramento. One of the first cities to start putting its trolley system back in during the '80s, large enough to have some urban amenities, but still possible to go for a long ride in the country without driving to it and regular trains to the Bay Area (like fifteen per day). Plus, there is a growing movement to build a velodrome on city park land. Add in the mild climate (you get used to 110F highs in the summer), and it's a decent place.

What about the weather? Not too many cold and wet days?

A.

i've been car-free in chicago for over a decade now. i don't know if it's the best car-free city out there (i haven't ever lived anywhere else so how could i know that?), but i make it work for me, with the city's good transit system picking up the slack when our challenging weather makes cycling a less appealing option. i'd say i'm like a 60-70% winter bike commuter; if it's 4 degrees outside or there's 2 feet of snow on the ground, i'm on the train.

You can live car-free in NYC easily as well, but the weather makes it often very unpleasant and the traffic can get bad enough to slow down bicycles. I'd much prefer a place with a milder climate: less humid Summers and warmer Winters and less car traffic.

Louisville KY won't win any awards, but I like the climate here. Public transportation is not great, but it exists.

If you're willing to live and work in the central part of the city (inside the 264 loop) it can be quite easy to get around by bike. There's an up-and-coming bicycle community here. I love the monthly car-free happy hour.

Louisville is also affordable and has not been hit as hard as some areas by the recession.

If you're talking only US cities, I hear Boston is nice, in addition to the usual suspects.

I'm car-free in Toronto, Ontario, and it's no problem at all.

You might want to look at zipcar.com and see which cities they are in, it's a nice thing to have if you're car-free.

I live car free in San Jose, CA. The weather here is very good for cycling, there is decent public transit between a light rail system, buses and a commuter train that connects us to San Francisco. I agree with Spudd that availability of Zipcar makes car free life much easier, and they are not really available in San Jose. I also lived in Boston, and weather was not nearly as agreeable, the road maintenance was atrocious, and the drivers were terrible, but a very good public transit system and a walkable city core made it another place where car free living is not difficult. Boston also has good access to Zipcar.

Louisville, KY keeps coming up often. I actually have a friend who moved there from NYC and I have been meaning to finally come over to visit him. I already looked up rents and salaries and they compare very favorably to NYC: you make less, but cost of living is even lower so you come out ahead. I just need get off my lazy butt.

I love small-town Florida. It's always riding weather. If you need a little more action without chaos, Gainesville would be a good choice. They've got massive bike lanes all over town. If you go to Miami, Orlando, etc, I wish you luck, but not for me, thanks.

Portlandia FTW !
Our city is currently installing new and improved bike lanes and reforming laws.
However I must say, our road rage is high!

Copenhagen (Odense is actually nicer), Amsterdam, Hamburg, Stockholm, Oslo,...

I always vote for my hometown of Lansing, Michigan because it's been so good to me. Good housing, not too much traffic, one of the best public transit systems in the country, first city to pass Complete Streets as a ballot referendum, nice climate, big university.....

To this, I'll toss in most Bay Area towns - same weather, towns on the west end of the bay have CalTrain (commuter rail), San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and Mountain View have light rail; the east bay has BART (like the DC Metro). Which town is better depends on where you work. I've been living in Santa Clara for over a year and am fairly car lite (nature of my job still requires a vehicle).

I think Platy will agree with me that Austin, Texas is pretty darn good for living car free.
You only get a couple months of really cold weather, the city is populated but not that spread out, buses have bike racks, metro rail has bike hooks, significant amount of bike lanes, and there are enough people biking on a daily basis where motorists are well aware of us.

To be fair I'm car lite, not completely car free but I'm car free more than 3/4 of my week and I have no trouble getting where I need to go.

Generally yes, I'm in agreement about that. We've developed quite a sprawl that extends into the scenic but hilly areas to the west, where the cycling can be challenging. Hi-tech workers here often find their jobs moving from one place to another every few years, so today's perfect car free living situation can turn into tomorrow's nightmare commute. Having said all that, Austin's got a lot of positives for car free living which you already mentioned.

I'll agree with the earlier poster who mentioned Toronto.

Also, give serious consideration to Victoria, British Columbia and Vancouver, British Columbia, in that order. Both have a mild, albeit damp, marine climate, but Victoria has put a little more effort into making itself bike friendly.

Nanaimo is also worth some consideration and it has a beautiful and compact downtown area. Make sure to visit that city for yourself. It's got a rather quirky character. Not everybody likes it.

I would like to say Portland, OR is not the best and is way overrated.

The drivers here are the worst I have ever experiance in my life. I am almost hit about once a week. In fact I was almost hit twice only tonight, and once yesterday. Dont you just love it when a driver looks you directly in the eyes and proceeds to try and end your life.

Pedestrian deaths are up more than 35%. And in general there is no repercussions for hitting or killing a pedestrian or cyclist.

There are alot of things to love about the area, but dealing with drivers is not one of them.

I'm also thinking Louisville wouldn't be so bad. The weather isn't much worse than Seattle, it's way, way less expensive, and culturally it has almost nothing to do with the rest of the state that elected Rand Paul into office. Personally, I'm kind of enamored with the idea of actually being able to afford a house on a teacher's salary, which is totally impossible here in Seattle...

I like Nanaimo. It's kind of like a (very slightly) classier version of Tacoma. It's in the shadow of a more glamorous city, but it's a place where people, you know, actually do real work, instead of just operating wine bars and making espresso.

i agree with bragi i too like nanaimo

we're all different when it comes to weather. having lived in chicago for three and a half decades since my birth, this kind of climate is all that i know and i'm more than capable of rolling with the meteorological punches by now. as i said before, when chicago's winter weather is less conducive to cycling, the transit system here really helps me fill in the gaps of my car-free lifestyle. to me, absolutely no city can be considered a great place to live car-free unless there is a comprehensive transit system of trains and buses to supplement walking & biking.

as for big city traffic, i've had precious few encounters with d-bag motorists over the years in chicago, but i think i can attribute some of that to knowing my city so freaking well (i've been here for 35 years afterall) that i not only know what routes are best avoided, but i also know all of the side-street get-arounds that allow me to avoid the places where motorists are most likely to behave like jerks.

The weather isn't drastically better than NYC, but the Winters are milder and shorter. However, summers can be really hot and humid, but that's not much different from NYC. It's more laid back I was told. The NYC rush is getting on my nerves. Also, my biggest problem with living in Queens or Brooklyn is that you live on a crowded island with expensive and crowded bridges and lousy bike access to the mainland. At worst, I 'd like to move to New Jersey or upstate NY to be able to ride places on weekends without having to take a train out of the city or ride through ugly suburbs for hours.

I'm trying frantically to pay off my debts, save some money and simplify my belongings to make a long distance move a bit more realistic and easier to pull off.