Best Cities To Live In

Highlights

San Fierro in
GTA
is a beautiful, calm city with a diverse culture and economy, perfect for a peaceful life in the
GTA
universe.
London in the 1961 expansion pack felt like a nice escape from the crime-ridden cities in
GTA
, offering a lovely, kinder setting.
Los Santos in
GTA
, styled after LA, offers beautiful settings with diverse biomes, making it one of the most interesting places in the franchise.

Grand Theft Auto presents a unique experience, allowing players to run around freeing open worlds and commit their own crimes in a realistic setting, albeit with hyper-realism due to the abundance of murder. The reliance on crime and violence in the games makes it occasionally difficult to use Grand Theft Auto as a life simulation game, but there are plenty of regular, fun activities that players can engage in.

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Many players have likely built nice lives for themselves in Grand Theft Auto games. It’s easy to think about the idea of actually living within the settings of some GTA games, as they are sometimes truly wondrous to look at, better than the real-life cities they mimic at times. These locations would be the best to live in if GTA was real, as these cities, whilst satirical in nature, still seem safer than other GTA locations.

6 Manchester

Hearty Industrial City

In the United Kingdom
Appears In Grand Theft Auto: London 1961

A fascinating inclusion in the series is the only time that Grand Theft Auto has gone to a real city was when they included British cities in the GTA: London 1969 and GTA: London 1961 expansions to the original GTA game. The London 1961 pack included Manchester as a multiplayer map that could be explored, to a lesser extent, than some cities in the franchise, and it generally seemed like a pretty nice place.

With the grim landscapes included in some GTA games, simply going to a place as simple and real as 1960s Manchester seemed like a lovely idea. Living there, in a highly industrialized city that was booming in the 60s, feels like a much kinder idea than entering the crime-ridden cities that GTA usually inhabits when it’s on the other side of the Atlantic.

5 Los Santos

Filled With The Uber-Rich

In The State Of San Andreas
Appears In GTA: San Andreas & Grand Theft Auto 5

The primary setting for the fifth mainline installment in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, as well as one of the major locations in the beloved GTA: San Andreas, Los Santos, is the franchise’s representation of Los Angeles. This beautiful location has been explored in detail by most fans of the series and is a beautiful home to the uber-rich, as well as having some less developed areas.

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Whether fans of the franchise would like to live in Los Santos is down to personal preference, but despite the crime that appears to be fairly rife in the city, it is a beautiful location with a lot of great places to enjoy and a surprising number of different biomes that can be explored within reach. Mountains, beachside, desert, and developed cities are all within a few minutes of each other, making Los Santos one of the most interesting places in the entire GTA franchise. It’ll be hard for GTA 6 to match up.

4 Alderney City

Less Rife With Crime Than Most Places

In The State Of Alderney
Appears In Grand Theft Auto 4

There aren’t any cities in the Grand Theft Auto franchise that aren’t plagued by some level of criminal activity. That being said, a place like Alderney City is represented and described as being much nicer for ordinary civilians than most. With beautiful architecture, a great financial hub, and a calmer place for ordinary people than nearby Liberty City, Alderney’s capital city is a genuinely happy place, although fans still have nightmares about the Abandoned Sprunk Factory.

With Liberty City so close, most criminal organizations have their main base of operations there instead of in Alderney City. Supposed to represent New Jersey, there will certainly be some players that won’t find Alderney to their tastes. But as an actual place to have a life, it would be both calmer and safer than most major population centers in a violent world.

3 Vice City

80s Nostalgia In A Nutshell

gta-6-version-of-vice-city-two-roads-trailer-highway

In The State Of Florida
Appears In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City & Grand Theft Auto 6

The main location for GTA: Vice City is a very strange place. Located in Florida, which makes it the only known real-life US state to be included in the GTA world, this city is based on Miami and was filled when first seen with 80s nostalgia, partly because that game took place in 1986. Despite rampant crime filling the city, this place is a dream for all who fancy themselves living somewhere flashy and filled with glam rock culture in the 80s.

Vice City will be revisited as GTA 6 has been confirmed to take place there, in the modern-day. While it may not have the same flash and sizzle of 1980s culture, fans will be able to see if they’d still like to live there soon. In the meantime, players can continue dreaming of living in this sunny paradise, and try not to think too much about how much cocaine was being imported into the city daily.

2 London

Real Bustling Metropolis

In the United Kingdom
Appears In Grand Theft Auto: London 1969

There are very few real-world locations given their current names in the GTA franchise, but London is the most significant of them. Appearing in the London 1969 expansion to the first Grand Theft Auto game, the city was never as deeply explored in the franchise as many of the cities in the open-world era, but it was seen and appeared to be a lovely place that many fans hoped to see again.

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London in the 60s was fascinating, filled with culture and becoming one of the most notable cities in all of Europe. While no city is without problems, this location didn’t appear to be as rife with crime and a huge criminal underworld as many places visited by the series, prompting fans to think of it as one of the nicer potential locations to live.

1 San Fierro

Down To Earth City Of Life

In The State Of San Andreas
Appears In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

The best place to live in the Grand Theft Auto universe, at least out of the many locations shown thus far in the franchise, has to be San Fierro. The second city that players can explore in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is based in San Francisco, and is described and found to be a beautiful metropolis, much cleaner and calmer than any of the other cities found in the series.

Diverse in economy and diversity, there is a place for everyone and everything in San Fierro. There are crimes to be found, but the place seems much more peaceful to live in for an ordinary person than any of the other cities found in the games. Described as “a trendsetter in everything alternative”, this city boasts a great population who support the ideals from the 1960s of free love and flower power, making San Fierro sound like an incredibly happy place to be, and even though the game came out in 2004, players could bring a friend along for the ride.