Chiang Mai is one of the most popular areas for expats to live in Thailand. There are 3 major areas that this is the case: Phuket, Chiang Mai, and of course, Bangkok. I think that for most people the millions and millions of people that also live in Bangkok is going to be a turnoff. I think that for most people that the high cost of living in Phuket is going to be a turnoff. Chiang Mai is far more affordable and far less populated than both of them but that doesn't mean it is perfect.
The city center or nearby area of "Nimen" is where most of the foreigners that live here decide to reside and for many people, I think this is a mistake. It all kind of depends on what kind of person you are.
I can understand why someone would want to live in the city center upon first arrival and this is particularly true if you don't speak Thai. The downtown area, which is pictured above, is the center for tourism in this city and therefore, almost everyone speaks English to some degree. It can be a bit intimidating to have almost no one speak English and the fact of the matter is that the further you get from the middle of the city, the less English they are going to speak. However, with the various translation apps and the fact that almost everything is done via an app as well (taxis, deliveries, food, etc) you don't actually have to speak Thai in order to broaden your horizons a bit as far as where you live in concerned.
Here is Chiang Mai, and the square in the middle as well as to the west in Nimmanhaemin are the areas that most of the foreigners tend to live, especially if they don't have their own transportation like a car or motorbike. Not that long ago I moved to the area that is circled in red and honestly, it is tons better than the hustle and bustle of the other two areas. I still have easy access to the downtown area, yet my neighborhood is quiet and easy to navigate. I do a lot of my "navigation" on a bicycle and this is really easy to do.
A rule of thumb as far as I have learned since being here is that once you get to the outside of the not-quite-a-ring-road (which is the grey highway in the map) you have many neighborhoods just like mine. It has far less traffic, far fewer people, and here is the best part: You get a lot more house for your money. Now if you like furnished apartments in a high rise this is not often available out this far but in the end we are talking about just over 10km in total so I am not exactly living in a distant suburb.
Even though I am a bit of a ways out, the thing about Chiang Mai is that even though it has over a million people living in it, almost zero of the buildings are tall due to some sort of city ordinance, so people are really spread out. The shopping is also spread out and within around a km from my front door I have access to a Tesco (renamed Lotus's now) a housewares superstore called Home Pro, two luxury grocery stores like Whole Foods but with different names, and a wide variety of fast-food chains such as McDonalds and KFC. About 2 km from where I live is a massive shopping mall called Central Festival that is just an amazing place that I will detail at another time. Basically you can get anything you can imagine done there.
I can understand why people would want the convenience of being downtown, but you need to ask yourself what exactly are you doing down there anyway? Most of what is there is historical stuff that while important, doesn't really have a lot to do with anyone's everyday life. Also, in the downtown areas prices are inflated for everything presumably because the land/rent is significantly higher than it is out 10 clicks from the middle.
Getting a taxi to the downtown area is really easy with the Grab App and it costs something like $3 to make that happen. I have a motorbike as well as a bicycle and if I want to drive it takes very little time at all especially because of the ring road. I don't really actually need to go in there all that often though so I spend most of my time just hanging out in my neighborhood which is extremely quiet thanks to the plethora of speed bumps that they put in to discourage anyone from using these roads as some sort of shortcut.
When I was living downtown I paid 12,000 Baht (a bit under $400) a month for a 1-bedroom walkup apartment that was quite small. Once I moved out to San Sai Noi I got a two-story, two-bedroom, fully-furnished house with a front and back garden for 10,000 Baht. So what if I have to ride a bicycle to go shopping? I will admit that I don't really ever walk anywhere because it is too far but then again, when I was walking places when I lived downtown I was always contending with high amounts of traffic and a near complete lack of sidewalks.
I think that if you are planning on living here and honestly, people should have a look because it is truly wonderful here, then you should at least have a look at places that are outside of the center. The real-estate agents are very helpful with this and the lady that got me my house drove me around in her car to a bunch of houses and I was so impressed with the one I ended up with that I put the deposit down that same day.
I have been much happier living out here and there are a bunch of other suburb areas that are very similar to this one that are also available. I can't really give details about them though because other than to visit, I haven't really been to any of them.