^ LOL at Samuel L Jackson photo and friends in low places.
Most of us know we’re pretty unique and unlike the rest of the US. I, for one, spend a lot of time reminding foreign tourists that New York is *not* like the rest of America: in booth good ways and bad.
But once you have become accustomed to the high-octane possibilities here, most other places seem disturbingly tame and boring, even if it is cheaper to have many sq ft or sq m of space. The one thing that routinely gets people to consider the value of being elsewhere is having children. Not only is having children fiendishly expensive here, assuming you want to give them a proper education and keep them from all the dangerous temptations around here, it’s just nice to have some time to relax a bit before the little buggers add some wacky thing to your routine.
The high octane opportunities elsewhere just appear different bchad, it’s not that they don’t exist. You can make much more money in Texas in O&G, or now in North Dakokta too, and pay 1/3 the cost of living. Or make a solid, though more relaxed, living in California in tech. Then there is agriculture which has surprisingly high salaries for crop and soil scientists. Then there is just the general professional jobs that exist in all cities, accountants, lawyers, engineers, trades.
Yes, if you want to make a boatload on Wall Street you should probably be on Wall Street. But it’s hardly the only place to make some decent coin. And that coin goes way further elsewhere. I’m sure a welder in North Dakota today makes way more than Itera on a cost of living adjusted basis.
And it’s not like you have to be a roughneck to make money. An oil and gas company needs a guy to issue bonds, deal with the banks, run investor relations. These jobs exist outside of New York too.
Obviously you knew all this, just saying to a finance guy New York is obviously the big time, but finance isn’t the only big time in America.
Sure, there are some opportunities to make money elsewhere. But for the properly credentialed people, are there other cities where the paths to $250k, $500k, $750k jobs are so clear? geo, I think you need to come to NY and see more of the world.
I’ve been. I think its a cool place. Just not the only place. There is plenty of places to make money elsewhere. I’d need to make over $250k in New York to afford the life I have today in small city Canada with real estate and taxes considered. So is the opportunity really that fantastic? And my income is by no means an outlier for similarly educated folks here. New York seems more like a rat race with hundreds clawing the faces of others for a couple itera jobs. Yeah, makes $500k in Manhattan is probably good. But so is $150k in a smaller center with easy hours and low pressure. I absolutely see the benefit of NYC if you’re stashing cash to head elsewhere later though. Make money while living frugally and then bugger off.
New York is actually similar to the rest of the world barring a few countries like Australia. It resembles patterns elsewhere where everyone is migrating towards cities and moving towards more condensed living.
Thanks a lot! Exaggerated much like everything else.
Geo, I think you’re confusing high octane lifestyle with just money. You can get well prepared ethnic food, see a masterpeice in a museum, listen to street performers, see famous people performing any type of entertainment, etc - right after you get off your job. Whether that job is high paying or not is irrelevant to the idea that you are still getting value for what you pay. I wasn’t raised to value items as much as experiences so maybe that’s why I can’t comprehend your mindset. I think just about everyone in NYC knows that they could get more items/land elsewhere, but then asks themselves what’s the point. That is until they have kids and start worrying about the school district they’re in.
Thanks lxwarr30. I was going to write something like that. In New York, you can live that kind of thing without necessarily making $250 k and above. Indeed, those high paying jobs often come with such demanding schedules that you can’t enjoy it even if you have them. Conversely, you can make good coin elsewhere, but then what are you going to do with all that money in North Dakota when you’re done with it. Just roll around on a floor full of benjis, and enjoy the smell of freshly minted banknotes?
^Well, if you’re comparing NYC to beautiful Williston, ND, then that’s not really a fair comparison. But if you compare NYC to maybe San Antonio, then that’s a little more fair. Sure, there’s not a theater district that plays 522 different Broadway shows every single night, and there’s not a bakery on every single street corner that sells those delicious bagels. But the theaters get 6-8 travelling shows per year, and there’s lots of good Mexican food (and some not good Mexican food). There’s the Riverwalk, and some pretty good eats down there, as well as in the rest of the town (that’s the suburbs to you NYC folk).
I’m sure you could make similar comparisons to Denver or San Diego or Atlanta.
I don’t think anyone’s comparing NYC to Williston, ND. The original conversation was about the high cost of renting. It’s just the price you pay to be in a major city. NYC could be compared to other big cities, but I assume that you pay high rent there as well. I think the main point is that the cost of renting is proportiante to the abundance of options. If you know what you want and there is a city that fits your interests then by all means live there. I just think the anti-NY sentiment based on cost of rent alone is a little silly. I know that for me if NYC wasn’t so expensive I wouldn’t be as motivated to succeed. I get amped up to do well because I want to experience everything and to do that you need to be successful.
^ This. Plus, if I wanted a city purely for insane culture, I’d live in London, Berlin or Paris long before New York. The downside of those cities (in particular Paris) is they don’t have the economic opportunity of New York. So New York is already a compromise of sorts. Or… You could live in North Dakota (or Midland, TX) and head to New York for some lifestyle every once in awhile as you have the cash to do whatever you please. I doubt I could afford my trips a few times each year to Asia, Europe and the US if I had to pay $2-3 million for similar real estate. There are different ways of accomplishing those objectives. I spend 3-4 weeks a year traveling, dedicated to experiencing culture full time. My city might not have tons of Broadway shows but how many can you watch anyway? Most of the folks here in NYC just spend their time wasted at a club anyway from the posts I see.
And don’t get me wrong. I think NYC is a pretty cool place. But its completely unliveable if you want to get ahead.
I’d hack my sack before I lived in either of those places.
Like my college professor said, “It doesn’t matter where you live as long as you can afford to vacation wherever you want to.”
What is getting ahead? You keep saying this, but it can be intrepreted so many ways. Are you saying, for you personally, you can’t achieve a particular goal in New York? A lot of people are making money hand over fist here. A lot of people get their careers minted at the companies headquartered here. Your statement seems vague.
^A lot of people win the lottery, too. Doesn’t really make it a viable career choice.
There are nice places outside of New York, and I’ve lived in some of them. But there is somethign that is addicting and hard to leave after you’ve experienced the 522 different broadway shows every night and bakery on every corner. And that is one of the reasons that people are willing to shell out such high prices for tiny places to live. Once you’ve lived here, most people find most other places a little “thin” on things to do. Not “starved,” but just thin enough that you notice. You can certainly get used to other places and adapt, but once you’ve lived here, you notice the difference.
The other thing is that, sooner or later, everyone passes through New York. When I lived in DC, I figured it would be the same, but people didn’t come visit DC nearly as often. It’s the flux of *people* not just the quantity of activities that make the place unique in the US. (I do think London and Paris are similar in this quality, and they have similar real estate issues)
The usual reason people move out is having kids. Some also can’t stand the weather, though NY is fairly mild compared to Boston and Chicago. A few find that competing with everyone who comes here, whether it’s in finance, theatre, academe, the diplomatic community, or whatever just too exhausting, and I get that. Finally, some people just aren’t city people to begin with, and prefer wide open areas. Nothing wrong with that; it’s a preference, and a perfectly legitimate one.
You don’t need to win the lottery to live a good lifestyle here regardless of what this forum wants you to believe. You won’t eat Nobu every night, send your kid to private school and live in a penthouse with a roof pool at 60-70k. That’s just life and not everyone can achieve that. You can get into museums, see your favorite artists when they come to town, eat out whenever you want (but not always whereever you want since you’re capped at like $$/$$$ Yelp mostly [which is still good food in NYC]) and still afford to dress/live comfortably and take one international trip a year. You could do more without saving any money or do the above and save some. So if getting ahead is limited to affording items then maybe this isn’t your place. If you want to be in a place where leisure and professional opportunities exist then most definitely you can get ahead here.
RIght. And when you live here, you also figure out ways to do many things that are far less expensive than what tourists pay. Restaurant week, special ways to find broadway tickets, finding the good places with value items, ete., free activities in the parks (usually a summer thing)…
When you’re a tourist, most people want to do the things that are recognizable to other out-of-towners, so they can tell a good story about their trip, and that tends to lead people to the most crowded and most expensive options in the city, which often aren’t even the best - they’re just the best advertised - and all of this generally attempted within a limited time frame of a weekend or a week’s visit.
You can of course do many of those things in other cities, too, but it’s the density of opportunities that is fairly unique here. San Francisco is a little bit this way too, and - surprise - finding a place to live there is fantastically expensive as well.