I lived in an enormous city (2nd biggest city in the world by some standards) with barely any public transport infrastructure for about 8 years (Jakarta). You'd probably like it there Pappy, for reasons I won't expand on. Or at least you would have liked it there during the early noughties. I walked a lot, getting home from work involved either a 20 minute walk or a 40 minute taxi ride, it was literally that bad. That lack of decent infrastructure was about the one thing that I didn't like about the place. In terms of public transport infrastructure Bangkok leaves it for dead, For getting around in Bangkok the best strategy is probably living in an apartment near a subway or skytrain station and only catching taxis very late at night.
I live well out in the burbs in Sydney, surrounded by bushland, and I quite like it. Public transport is largely non-existent though and 2 car families are the norm. NYC is one of the few western cities that I reckon I could live in without ever getting bored, but that is based on a couple of trips of a few days each.
I am a master at getting lost, I lack much of an innate sense of direction. I got lost on the subways in NYC, got off at some random station, walked up the stairs, stood in the middle of the street like a big fat stupid white tourist, looking at my giant fold-out tourist map of NYC, and then realized why I was the only white dude and people were looking at me funny. I was smack in the middle of Harlem.
