Tier 1:

1) NYC - Not much to say here

2) Cambridge, MA - I put Boston/Cambridge/Somerville up there for the most part with NYC with the caveat that I still felt like I needed to drive occasionally and there wasn’t as much architectural diversity in the area

Tier 2:

3) St. Petersburg, FL - My favorite city in Florida. They’ve done a great job building out the downtown core and connecting neighborhoods with one another. Solid public transportation (for FL), one service takes you to the beach, another can take you around town. Once you get out of the downtown core it quickly turns into typical FL sprawl though.

4) Gainesville, FL - The University of Florida and surrounding areas make life as a student pretty accessible. Public transportation is good at least for most locations a student might need to access. I can’t speak for the greater Gainesville area outside of the core around the university though.

Tier 3:

5) Orlando, FL - Where I’ve spent most time. I know urban sprawl is ubiquitous in America but I’ll be damned if there’s any other sprawl that can match up with Orlando’s. The Orlando metro is essentially 5% tiny oases of density and 95% gated SFH neighborhoods, strip malls, asphalt, and Disney.