You haven't explained why but I can preemptively say it isn't. Go outside the confines of American suburbia/countryside and you will see how out of touch these vehicles are to sustainable and healthy living.
Unfortunately agree, especially given how much of an influence the auto industry has on our government.
My goal is hence to make enough money to allow my family and I to live in an urban walkable environment. The venn diagram overlap of areas that have a high proportion of large trucks and how livable they are is quite small anyways.
Let me be the first one to say it - anyone who drives a large pick-up truck for non-commercial reasons is a grade A asshole. SUV drivers aren't that far off, though I sympathize with the game theory element of buying SUVs to protect against other larger cars -- but I would expect you to take accountability and drive slower and safer than smaller cars.
These monstrosities are environmentally unfriendly, pedestrian unfriendly, kid unfriendly, biker unfriendly, small car unfriendly, and are antithetical to the type of walkable and bikable cities that point to healthier and happier living. I wish we could tax the crap out of these things and drive them out of our towns.
Oh please, you have a right to privacy in your own homes, but not in shared roads where your driving can endanger others. I welcome this news and hopefully one day we have traffic cameras across every block in the country, that have already proven to reduce speeding/reckless and driving, and to directly impact the ~40k deaths we have on the roads each year.
Not the OP but as someone who grew up in Chicago, but then spent a large time in NYC, here are some examples:
1. Talent Density: Chicago is optimized talent-wise at a regional level (the midwest), while NYC is optimized at a global level. Chicago simply doesn't have the same pull if you don't live in the midwest the way NYC does for folks living anywhere across the world. This creates an obvious talent gap.
2. Culture: Chicago operates as a much more of an all-American city, reflecting cultural attitudes not too dissimilar from the rest of the country. Examples here include a heavy sports culture, emphasis on drinking/going out. You see a similar trend with NYC transplants (like myself in my early 20's) but you're eventually forced to grow out of it in NYC and create a more unique and diversified identity. I haven't seen much of this in my social circle from Chicago who never left.
3. Industry Density: Chicago is considered top at a few select industries including insurance, commodities etc. OTOH, there are very few industries that NYC would not be considered top in. Strong talent begets strong talent and this creates the sort of network effect that's present in the bay (for tech), and in NYC, but not in Chicago minus a few industries. These network efforts, over a long enough timeframe, fundamentally alter the landscape of one's career.
4. Local v.s. global maxima: Chicago allows you to reach a relatively easier maxima (career or culture wise), which likely means Chicagoans are happier on average. That concept doesn't exist in NYC or the bay. It pushes you to reach a global maxima which is inherently more challenging. For example, getting a job at Google likely sets you for life in Chicago. In NYC or the bay, that's simply a starting point. This isn't for the faint of heart but is highly rewarding if you're ambitious and work-oriented.
5. Arts and Fashion: The same concept of local v.s. global maxima exists here too.
6. Food: Far more global and unique in NYC than in Chicago (which in-itself has great food)
I would maybe keep SF and LA as tier 1.5 (ignoring the fact that LA is mostly a collection of suburbs) given their presence at the global scale, but there is a drop-off in tiers for all other cities. Chicago is a great example, it's usually considered a sister city to NYC, but as someone who grew up there and then later spent time in NYC, the differences in cultural attitudes between the two could not be starker.
This is a pretty reasonable approach but I would caution against potentially being too overly-conservative in eventually moving to the bay/NY if career ambition is a goal. What's often missing in these budgeting numbers is the intangible variable of a far lower ceiling of income potential that you have to trade off. How does the calculus change if say there is some probability X of reaching a potential far higher than 150-160k, as tends to be the case in these HCOL areas?