LA and Chi are the cheaper of the 4 you list. Hard to tell what a typical living budget would be because there are variables such neighborhood you choose to live. Within all of those cities there is a tremendous range of housing cost. Speaking from experiance in Chicago, a couple in a modest apartment in the neighborhoods away from the lake could be $1000 month for rent, near the Lakefront a 600 squarefoot apartment with great views could be $1500 month. Wherever you live, being near transit is a must. Nothing blows a budget like gasoline and auto expenses. Better to pay $100 more a month to bear near a train or decent bus line.

thanks

any more on east coast?

Housing will be your big cost. Check out Craigslist and other apartment finder websites to see what that'll run you. Archinectors can tell you if the neighborhood is unsafe, etc. You can also search websites of the various metro/mass transit options to see what a monthly pass will run you.

Living expenses are so variable based on how you want to live. I'm sure someone here will tell you that you can live in NYC for under $2000/month, but will that match the standard of living you're accustomed to? Doubtful.

totally agree w/JoeyD... the east coast cities like Boston and NYC are significantly more expensive than Chicago. Rents in those 2 cities would probably be 150% more than comparable places in Chicago. Granted, NYC is much more dense and has much more options for urban living while Boston is actually of pretty comparable density to Chicago (technically i think Chicago is actually a bit more dense) and is much smaller, but has other huge benefits because of its 'oldness' which is really rare in american cities.
I dont know much about LA or SF specifically. But id say, in order of cost of living, youd be looking at NYC, SF, LA, Boston, Chicago... and i think Chicago would be well down from those 4

Id also stess as JoeyD does ensuring you live in a city with ample public transit. Cars are so deceptively expensive... gas, repairs, payments, insurance, parking, tickets, fear of damage to it... etc etc... Definitely go the urban route, and pay the extra little bit in rent to ensure youre walking distance to a train or bus. Again, though i dont know a ton about LA's mass transit, i think its well behind the other 4 cities you mention. NYC, Boston, Chicago and SF are all sufficiently dense, and well enough covered with trains and buses that owning a car is technically a luxury. Ive been car-less in chicago for 8 years and have never honestly felt i needed one.

thanks for all responses..............i think i have some ideas in my mind now.

I previously considered Cornell, Syracuse uni and RPI, do you guys believe Ithaca, syracuse and troy are too boring for architecture students? or you prefer spending little on living to travelling long hours to NYC and Boston every month?

I am now living in London, not quite sure about the public transport in the suburban and cities in the US.........any suggestions?

thank you!

I generally agree with what everyone else has said. I think LA has the potential to be either the cheapest place on the list, or up there with SF or NYC, depending on the lifestyle you want to live.

Having a car is so expensive and it will be hard for you to get by in LA without one. On top of that, you want to try and get a decent, reliable car since you'll be driving long distances and going pretty fast. One reason there's not many old cars in LA is that people put so many miles on them so quickly, that they get run into the ground after less than 10 years.

That being said, I have a lot of friends that live downtown and have gotten by in LA for years without a car, or shared one. The metro system is actually really good (and empty much of the time) if it's going somewhere you need to go. You can bike year-round since the weather is good.

It's conceivable that you could go to Sci-arc or USC and not own a car. There's still plenty of cheap places in southcentral, Boyle Heights, the Industrial District, etc. that are within a quick bus trip to sci-arc. There's even still deals to be had in trendier places like echo park or silverlake. These are walkable places with transit access to both USC & Sci-arc.

I think if you went to UCLA, it would be harder to get by without a car, especially for your significant other. The Westside of LA just isn't very fun to walk around, and the distances between places can be vast as soon as you get off campus.

So for expenses in LA, if you lived on the Westside (going to UCLA), you might get a decent 1-bedroom place for $1,200/month, plus you'll have your car expenses (say $300 for the car (buy, lease, repairs averaged out), $150 for gas, $100 for insurance), 2 cell-phones/ other stuff for $400/month. You're looking at $2,150/month fixed cost for living a moderately comfortable life on the Westside.

In contrast, if you went to USC or Sci-arc and were savvy, you could find a huge (2000 SF) loft space for $1,000 month and not have a car... So now you're fixed living costs drop $1,400/month and that's for two people. However, you'll have to get used to living in a grittier area (I love it down here).

I can tell you that my fixed costs are about $900/month with a couple roommates (downtown w/ a car). You can live extremely cheap in LA, probably more so than the other major US cities, but it can take some time and patience to find the deals, and you have to be really flexible.

That being said, I would definitely visit here before you make a decision. It's not the place for everyone. The rest of the large cities are generally easier to inhabit.

fly... generally speaking, there is no public transportation in the suburbs. It doesn't exist. On the east coast and in denser suburban areas (like Chicago's and the west coast) there will be trains that can take you from the suburb to the city center, but as far as travel WITHIN the suburban city, there will be little to no means to do so without a car. That being said, if you live in any of the cities you listed, you'll find public transportation to be more than adequate. As has been mentioned, you can live virtually anywhere in a place like NYC, Boston and Chicago and have access to public transportation.

basically, let me just say that if you have never lived in the US, move to a city. I get the sense since you've asked about transit so much that you'd really be lost in suburban america. It is no exaggeration when you hear that outside of cities, life is virtually impossible without a car. Almost nothing is withing walking distance let alone biking distance. And even if it were, sidewalks along major streets can be rare and inhospitable and bike lanes dont exist.

America's most walkable cities (source: Walk Score):

Population >500,000

San Francisco
New York
Boston
Chicago
Philadelphia
Seattle
Washington DC
Los Angeles (!)
Portland
Denver
Baltimore
Milwaukee
San Diego
San Jose
Albuquerque

Note that they just count up the number of walkable neighorhoods based on spatial criteria and rank the cities based off the total # of such neighborhoods... it doesn't mean that the city is contiguously walkable (which clearly LA is not, despite having a large number of highly walkable neighborhoods)

for us, living in the city has trended as much or slightly less as my rural uni, cost wise.

we also don't have tons of modern furniture or the fattest living quarters, but we can weather the current economy for over a year if it comes to that.

i realize living in a place like NYC or SF will be slightly more expensive, but the tradeoffs of living in an urban location as an architect far outweigh the (potentially) lower cost of living of a rural area.

there are any number of "cost of living calculators" or "cost of living wizards" that you can locate through google ... these can help you understand the relative cost of living from one US community compared to another.

my two cents concerns public transit...if at all possible when commuting significant distances (thus crosssing multiple jurisdictions usually), live near a fixed form of transit like light rail, commuter rail, metro, etc. rather than relying on buses...

transferring between different bus networks is absolutely unreliable and you'll usually miss a connection here or there and go nuts over it...and this is using online regional trip planners that are supposedly co-ordinated with all the relevant transit authorities...

some cities are better than others, but the poor interconnectivity between various bay area bus systems (inc. alameda county, VTA - santa clara) stands out in particular, which is a surprise considering san fran usually is at the top of the game in regards to stuff like this...

I'll throw this out as a consideration--

Considering you're British and considering Bristol is on average superb compared to most American cities... I'd foot the bill on moving to a more urbanized city.

There isn't such a prevalent drinking culture here in the U.S. for the most part. And if you like to drink, well drinking and driving isn't the easiest here.

In the suburbs, most nights out on the town require to you drive to a bar (as for the most part they've been outlawed from setting up bars in the geographic centers of suburbs).

So, that's an interesting take on things right there.

Almost all (if not all) U.S. states have zero tolerance policies. It's not like the UK where you have flexibility-- fit, unfit, excess alcohol. And if you refuse, it's not a fine and some points on the license... they treat that as "admission of guilt" and sentence you anyways.

And with the exception of some states, the police here aren't granted with the power of discretion (or street justice like some police in the UK)-- no scare tactics, no ass beating et cetera and letting you off.

And here's some other considerations:

If you get a DUI and your license suspended in the US, you don't have alternative transportation. At least in the UK, if you're banned from driving... you can still hike around most parts.

A DUI in the US will cost you upwards of $30,000 (20,000 pounds) if you want to actually be able to drive an avoid 6 months to two years in jail.

A DUI in the US can also be grounds for deportation.

So, say a DUI costs you $20,000 in fees, fines and lawyer bills to be able to maintain some shred of your life for the next 3 years... You'll be paying between $550-600 dollars to maintain being able to drive in the suburbs. More than the difference it costs to live in a nice walkable neighborhood.

Have you checked out any schools in large-but-not-super-dense cities outside of the coasts? Off the top of my head I can think of a hand-full of schools at varying degrees of expense that are located a short bus ride to the downtown of a major state capital that are usually surrounded by relatively inexpensive living with plenty of living amenities with-in walking distance.

Some examples: Ohio State in Columbus, NC State in Raleigh, Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburg, Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Miami in Miami, RISD in Providence, SCAD in Savannah, UCinn in Cincinnati, Detroit Mercy in Detriot, U Michigan in Ann Arbor, U Kentucky at Lexington, U Penn in Philly, U Tennessee in Knoxville, U Texas in Austin, Washington University in St. Louis, Tulane in NO

I havent actually visited all of those campuses/cities so I can say for sure exactly what they are like, but all are located in small to medium sized-cities which might be a nice alternative to either the school in crazy-big expensive city (like NYC or SF) or college-town school (like auburn or syracuse) where the only thing in town is the school.

Boston and its environs will probably feel the most familiar to you of all American cities - the rest of the country is very very different.

Ithaca is small town - you could conceivably get around without a car there since it's pretty dense (but extremely hilly), but there's not much there aside from the two schools (cornell and ithaca college). It's pretty far away from anything, so getting down to NYC isn't something you'd do often. It's a really beautiful place, though.

they get A LOT of snow in the winter.

+ there are some weird religious sects tucked away around there.