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The key here is that as every individual is different, different cities will suit different people better or worse.
NYC is my favorite city in the US to visit (bar none). I love the beautiful architecture, the riverfront, and the endless amounts of top tier restaurants, museums, performing arts, and shopping. I also appreciate how most of what NYC has to offer can be experienced without the use of a car. However, while I love to visit NYC, I don't believe I'd like to live there. I can afford to experience a lot of what NYC has to offer because I don't live there. Plus, as I have 2 large dogs (and 2 cats), NYC (at least any part where I would want to live) is out of my price rang. I don't think it's overrated for young professionals who don't mind roommates, or people who can afford to live in the nicer areas, but it probably is out of reach of most middle class Americans who want to maintain some level of a healthy work / life reference. For what NYC offers though, there just isn't any other singular place that offers it.
LA is also a great city and one I'd probably rather live in than NYC. LA offers a good percentage of the amenities (but obviously not all) that NYC offers at a much more reasonable price. The same can be said about Chicago. Yes, they're not NYC (but as I said before, no city is).
San Francisco is probably the worst city to live in for someone in the middle class. Yes, it gets a lot of praise, and has a lot of amenities. However, the city has effectively priced itself too high for the middle class (and probably has a larger rich / poor income inequity than any other major city in the country). However, San Francisco also has amazing food, arts activities, and scenery.
Agreed, Dallas is kinda viewed as 'meh' on this forum. Similar to a city like PHX or something. Few are those with strong feelings either way. Dare I say 'vanilla'.
Dallas isn't vanilla, but it is viewed as such by those who don't really know it. It has parts with character and those don't. Not much different from most places.
However, I think Seinfeld was fairly reasonable. Jerry was a successful stand-up comic and he lived in a small one bedroom on the upper West Side. I have a family member who is also a successful stand up comic and lived in a similarly sized one bedroom apartment in a similar area during the same time frame. It's perfectly reasonable. There was even a stretch where George lost his job and had to move back with his parents due to the lack of work. Kramer had questionable income to justify his apartment, but that was part of the Kramer joke. The only questionable one, in my opinion, was Elaine. She seemed to have a larger, more well appointed apartment, but she was also probably the most consistently employed of the bunch.
She was also the daughter of world-famous daughter, Alton Benes! C'mon man! You think Alton is gonna let her starve on the street?!
Also, you know Peterman was definitely a good payer. Elaine was making bank!
The key here is that as every individual is different, different cities will suit different people better or worse.
NYC is my favorite city in the US to visit (bar none). I love the beautiful architecture, the riverfront, and the endless amounts of top tier restaurants, museums, performing arts, and shopping. I also appreciate how most of what NYC has to offer can be experienced without the use of a car. However, while I love to visit NYC, I don't believe I'd like to live there. I can afford to experience a lot of what NYC has to offer because I don't live there. Plus, as I have 2 large dogs (and 2 cats), NYC (at least any part where I would want to live) is out of my price rang. I don't think it's overrated for young professionals who don't mind roommates, or people who can afford to live in the nicer areas, but it probably is out of reach of most middle class Americans who want to maintain some level of a healthy work / life reference. For what NYC offers though, there just isn't any other singular place that offers it.
LA is also a great city and one I'd probably rather live in than NYC. LA offers a good percentage of the amenities (but obviously not all) that NYC offers at a much more reasonable price. The same can be said about Chicago. Yes, they're not NYC (but as I said before, no city is).
San Francisco is probably the worst city to live in for someone in the middle class. Yes, it gets a lot of praise, and has a lot of amenities. However, the city has effectively priced itself too high for the middle class (and probably has a larger rich / poor income inequity than any other major city in the country). However, San Francisco also has amazing food, arts activities, and scenery.
LA is getting insanely expensive lately as well, although I don't think it will ever be quite as pricey as SF. The NIMBYs up there seem intent on stymying any new development (Prop B anyone?) and the ever-increasing prices reflect that. The crazy part is that I have some friends up there that complain about the high prices and are also against new development. Talk about a massive disconnect.
LA has its own fair share of NIMBY problems, but more often than not the intent seems to be to get a payoff. The projects tend to happen in the end, after the appropriate wheels have been greased. Lawyers like Robert Silverstein have made their careers out of filing CEQA lawsuits on new projects. The process happens so often that it now has its own name: "greenmailing".
The sooner we can pass CEQA reform the better. The law's original intent (to protect the environment) has been completely subverted to line lawyers and NIMBYs pockets, and its especially ironic because dense infill projects actually benefit the environment because they're built in lieu of greenfield (sprawl) developments on the urban fringe.
/end CA real estate politics rant
Last edited by DistrictDirt; 06-14-2014 at 07:49 PM..
Dallas isn't vanilla, but it is viewed as such by those who don't really know it. It has parts with character and those don't. Not much different from most places.
Dallas is pretty vanilla/bland compared to the other cities of similar size.
Definitely San Francisco. The national perception of SF is so skewed. SF is only really a great place to live if you are rich or a tech wizard. SF is very hard on the middle class. The poor in SF have it harder than most cities. SF has some of the worst public housing projects in America in terms of crime and livability. But the national perception of SF is that it is a "nice place". It's so bad that people who are not truly familiar with SF think the city doesn't have crime or ghetto areas. This couldn't be further from the truth. Inner city areas in SF are just as scary and dangerous as any inner city area in California or America. I know having grown up in SF's infamous Lakeview district for the greater part of my childhood. Bullets coming through the windows and having my parent's repeatedly offered hard drugs by often prepubescent drug dealers was the norm there in the 90's. The media does a good job portraying the entire city of Oakland to be a ghetto hellhole. This is despite the fact that SF historically has had just as much violent crime as Oakland. Some years, SF and Oakland had almost identical murder counts. Yes, SF is roughly twice the size of Oakland, but both cities had about 100 murders a piece for years. It just so happens that the wealthy low-crime areas of SF offset the total crime average for the city. SF is one of the worst cities to live if you are black, period. In SF, blacks are almost entirely confined to decaying ancient housing projects in the outskirts of town in places like Hunter's Point. Latinos also have it very rough in SF as most Hispanics are confined to the gang-torn Mission district where Nortenos and Surenos kill each other year after year.
Also on a basic level, the weather in SF isn't really all that nice. It's pretty much cold all year round. Even in July, you have chilly, gray, windy 50 degree days. The weather is awkward. It might warm up to 80 degrees for an hour during the day and then plummet back to 55 degrees when the sun goes down. There are no real seasons in SF. Its all the same weather all year round pretty much. It gets repetitive. SF is also pretty geographically isolated. L.A. is a far drive and the only other somewhat close city is Las Vegas. When I was growing up in SF, SF was our reality, period. The only time we left the city was to visit my grandparents in Sausalito across the Golden Gate bridge.
DC is another city like this. DC is a soulless city. DC is full of shallow people who only care about status, money and work. The first thing people ask strangers in DC is "what do you do?" It's a size up question. DC is split between yuppified gentrifiers who go to sleep and wake up everyday wearing business casual at the least and an equally large population of resentful ghetto black people who hate non-blacks and non-DC natives. But the hate in DC is not in your face and vocalized. Rather, it is subdued and passive aggressive. It can even been seen in DC's horrific traffic and horrible drivers. Everybody in DC thinks they are more important that they really are. People drive like they are the only cars on the road in bumper to bumper beltway traffic. People don't sit on their horns like NYC, but you will be cut off in traffic and whizzed past time and time again. DC is a very hard place to meet potential dates and make friends. DC is so status obsessed, yet most people in DC are poorly dressed and unattractive. DC is also very uptight and overly formal. Everybody always dresses like they just came from the office even on weekend nights. It's not like NYC where you see a lot of regular guys dressed down stylishly wearing fitted baseball caps and Nikes. It is very hard to make connections with people in DC. All everybody talks about is work. DC people are also very condescending and elitist. And trying to be friendly and talk to native black folks in DC if you aren't from there? Forget about it. Especially if you aren't black yourself.
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