if you can make it in NY you can make anywhere? (Accord: lease, crime)

[webbbj]

if you can make it in NY you can make anywhere?

I live in cincy and was just browsing the other city forums and read this quote. Why is this saying true? what makes NY so much more difficult then other big cities?

Is the job market rough? people rude? cost of living too high? crime too high? living space too small? city too crowded? transportation too rough? privacy, not enough?

[Northwindsforever]

According to Alicia Keys, yes.

[ParkBorough]

Originally Posted by webbbj

if you can make it in NY you can make anywhere?

I live in cincy and was just browsing the other city forums and read this quote. Why is this saying true? what makes NY so much more difficult then other big cities?

It's not more difficult than other cities for ordinary people. What has happend in the past 10 or 15 years is that the fail safes for people who have come here unprepared, or the misfit toys who are lacking in the skills or credit department, have disappeared. But if you're an actuary or construction manager who gets transferred here you'll be fine. Your housing costs will go up but you'll likely be able to ditch your car and also make more in salary. These things have a way of working out.

Having said that we are in a national recession and NYC has not been immune. So coming here with no income or prospects lined up, and entering into a lease or mortgage at a high NYC cost, is ill advised. Personally I wouldn't move to even the least expensive city in the country without something lined up!

We have the best public transit in the US. The gruff, surly thing is more a Northeast phenom than a specific NYC one. Unless you make a lot of money you will probably not be be able to live in Manhattan and the boroughs and NJ are not as claustrophobic as Manhattan and tend to have less cramped units too. Crime is at an historic low in NYC and has been for some time.

[citylove101]

What makes NYC tough is a general intensity and competitiveness that you rarely find anywhere else in the US. Here people compete intensely for everything: jobs, status, housing, schooling, whos done the coolest things, who has the best church, who has the most influential friends, .. you get the idea. It's not that people don't care about these things elsewhere, but it's just not with the same intensitiy and to the same degree that they do here. To be fair, there are a lot of us who don't give a s**t about any of that and just go on about our business. But we're all touched by it I think more than we would be if we lived someplace else, even in other big self-consously "important" cities like LA or DC.