Thank you, for answering. I have been in the san francisco bay area for a year and I have seen extremism on the left and it isn't that pretty. Anyone leaning too far right or far left is too much for me.
Too late, I was there for 2 weeks right before christmas and got something in seven meadows. We(me and my wife) must be crazy. We are ok with boring areas since we are really boring people. We realize we are not really city people; it seems the only time we go to san francisco city is to go to chinatown or tradeshows/conventions. As long as there is a chinatown, we are happy. Obviously, now we have to drive to chinatown instead of taking the bart (rail).
We run home/online businesses so distance is really not an issue.
Wow, I think your situation is very similar to ours (me and my wife) and even with the exact same selection criteria and process of elimination, which led us to selecting houston. We also do not have a car. Only difference is we are coming down from san francisco. I agree with the seattle part. We did visit and seriously considered seattle but I agree it is way overrated. We also do not know anyone but just decided to come down to houston before christmas for 2 weeks and looked around. It was pretty good, (except for lots of crows everywhere). I agreed Houston is really under rated. After we decided on houston, I started taking more notice of movies, lists, and everything else that lists cities and realize that lost of times houston is not included when it should be. It is weird.