Unless you live in the most fashionable areas of Manhattan, the rents are tolerable. If you live outside the most fashionable parts of Brooklyn, Queens, LIC, the rents are quite okay, provided that you work for a decent wage.

If you choose to live close enough to a train station, almost everything of interest is within 20-40 mins by train. Subway is not exactly great, but it's safe and works around the clock in most places. (To say nothing of the fact that in most places the daily necessities are within walking distance, even in not-so-dense Brooklyn.)

The subway and train system is really a democratizing force.

It makes places in Brooklyn, Queens, New Jersey, and Long Island accessible with a reasonable commute.

Even in Manhattan, though, the rents are similar to SF but we've found you get slightly more for it.

Swaths of Brooklyn and Queens. The thing with NYC compared to the Bay is that their public transit makes living in the relative sprawl much more reasonable than Bay commute traffic

I have friends who swear by Astoria.

I'd say most of New York city meets that criteria.