So Many Tradeoffs

I was reading on a local forum a discussion thread with people giving advice about where to live to someone relocating to my urban hellhole. It's difficult advice to give without knowing quite a lot about how a person prioritizes certain things (schools, parking, proximity to certain kinds of retail establishments, outdoor space, availability of transit, and of course their budget). While perhaps not obvious until you actually settle in, there's a tremendous difference between being, say, 3 blocks from a store providing a decent selection of groceries, and being 8 blocks from one. Everyone's reasonably close to mass transit, but if you use it for a daily commute, having a couple of extra blocks to walk, or being near the bus line that runs every 20 minutes instead of every 8, makes a tremendous difference in your life. Even the nicest areas have some blight, and aesthetic and safety issues can vary significantly block by block.