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Being wealthy and having empathy for those with less. The horror!
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Originally Posted by Louis XVI
Since you seem to love Los Angeles, you know that the majority of the city is a fetid, and dumpy working class haven filled to the brim with illegals, miserable people and homeless, but when people dream of LA they dream of living in Beverly Hills or Malibu and being rich..not being working-class in the LA basin.
"Fetid and dumpy"... That's quite a way of showing empathy
Right, because no other cities compare to NYC Keep up that elitist mentality.
In the U.S., certainly no other city remotely compares to NYC.
Globally, London, Paris, and Tokyo are the only cities that I can think of that can legitimately be compared across a broad spectrum of assets. Even then, I think NYC is stronger than any of those three overall.
You have to figure in that if you live in NYC you aren't taking advantage of that great "culture" on a regular basis. Most people don't have the money to be eating out every single night, have the time to go to museums, get plastered at bars, etc.
I've lived and worked there, and NYC has another side to it that isn't romanticized on these forums. It's positively filthy and the people are a miserable breed with too many from NJ and Long Island. In addition, it's got a sickening corporate work culture compared to California, and the public transit system is straight up annoying (crap frequencies on the weekends and an overall dirty experience.) Oh, and once you live out that NYC summer dream (if you want to call it that) you have to deal with s*** weather for about 5 months.
So yes -- IMHO, the NYC experience is overly romanticized on these forums.
I've had several friends who got dream jobs in New York City, and spent years bitching about it until they finally moved back to Houston (separate people, not all together). New York is a hard city to live in - expensive, crappy weather, transportation, super competitive in the workforce. These people all were so excited to get jobs there, but all complained mostly about the weather and expenses.
They all said how hard it is to make friends there, or rather do anything with the friends you make because everyone lives so far away from each other. One person could live in New Jersey, while the other lives in Staten Island, requiring long commutes that just aren't worth it most of the time. I'd say it's probably easier on the natives because they'll have friends from school days and probably concentrated in certain areas.
One person told me he went several months without seeing a sunny day. It was either a particularly rainy year or that's typical for several months out of the year. He didn't stay much longer than that anyway because he got a job in LA (which he loved by the way). LA just may be easier for a Houstonian to adjust to because they're both car-centric, sprawling cities, and the weather's so much more pleasant in LA.
In the U.S., certainly no other city remotely compares to NYC.
Globally, London, Paris, and Tokyo are the only cities that I can think of that can legitimately be compared across a broad spectrum of assets. Even then, I think NYC is stronger than any of those three overall.
Yeah but the thread title is "cities that are romanticized on CvC but are realistically bad places to live". Sure, NYC is great if you have ample discretionary income, but how much is the single mom struggling to pay rent in the Bronx really going to care about NYC's GDP or how many theatres per capita or how many Michelin starred restaurants it has, etc. I'd venture to guess that the average American on an average American income living in New York is prohibited from enjoying many (but not all) amenities that NYC is known for. Same goes for San Francisco, LA, and other expensive cities with significant income inequality.
And Kramer had one just as nice without any apparent source of income most of the series. I mean sure he probably got some check from his union's strike fund, but I can't imagine the bagelmaker union has deep pockets.
Yeah makes as much sense as The Big Bang Theory's Penny character[a Cheesecake Factory waitress] being able to afford an apartment in the LA suburb of Pasadena on her wages alone, when Sheldon Cooper [her neighbor across the hall] and a professor at Cal Tech, needs a roommate to swing it!
This thread is pretty funny since most people who post on this forum probably live in auto-oriented, suburban style housing. I bet most posters on this forum rely on their car to go grocery shopping, to commute to work, or even just to go out to meet with friends.
So I wouldn't really rely on anyone who criticizes urban places, such as SF or NYC, unless they have actually lived there, especially from some suburban outsider. Now that I'm living a car-free lifestyle in an urban neighborhood, I don't think I'll ever go back to the suburbs again. I'd drop dead with boredom.
I live in Chicago, about equidistant walking distance from the Hancock building and the Sears/Willis Tower. I don't own a car, I walk or bike to work, and I live on the top floor of a vintage, 1890-era walk-up building. I'm probably not "most people" but I am one person.
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Originally Posted by bruhms
Definitely Chicago.
Chicago has parts with serious issues, there's no denying that. But I've lived here as a student, an intern, an entry-level college graduate, and now as a mid-career professional. It's definitely been easier as a mid-career professional, but I fell in love with the city living in what can be described as a transitional neighborhood renting one bedroom in a roachy walkup that required a 45 minute commute by transit to my job. That would be a bad existence for most American families, any many students would haven't really liked it that much either, but it was fine for me because I loved hearing a dozen different languages just walking around, I loved getting a burrito, some tortilla chips and a glass of milk for under $5, I loved the $5 haircuts, and I loved that I didn't need a car but could still get just about anywhere I needed to go. Now I pay $30 for a haircut, am more likely to spend $50 on dinner than $5, can walk to work in half that time or bike in 1/5th, but I still get around just about anywhere I want to go without a car.
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Originally Posted by Standard111
There are far more families in NYC than in any other city in the U.S., and I'm pretty sure they aren't all multi-millionaires. Why would they be? Rent burden isn't much higher than other cities, most households don't own vehicles, and things like food and clothes cost the same as anywhere else (groceries possibly less).
I think a lot of people forget that Manhattan is a relatively small portion of New York both geographically and population-wise. Of course, Manhattan and Brooklyn are about 95% of what people talk about when they talk about New York even though they are less than half of the city.
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Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer
A normal middle-class family lifestyle in most of America looks something like: a husband, wife and 2 kids living in a 2500 square foot single family home with 2 cars, a garage and a yard. Also, well-rated public elementary, middle and high schools nearby to send the kids to.
How much do you think this lifestyle would cost per year in New York City?
I think that lifestyle in Staten Island would be less than you might expect if you were used to only seeing Manhattan prices. Even in parts of Queens it would easily eclipse the costs in Indianapolis, but still be attainable to a pretty sizable number of Americans.
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Originally Posted by Standard111
Obviously NYC (the city proper) is a bad choice if you want to live in a "2500 square foot suburban house with picket fence". But that isn't the "normal" American family these days. And if you really wanted that sort of lifestyle, there are tons of suburban areas in a 100-mile radius around the city.
And this.
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Originally Posted by spicymeatball
How about Portland and Austin? People make them out as some kind of utopian leftist paradise but in reality they're pretty typical American cities with a significant minority of "crunchy" people in the inner neighborhoods.
I grew up outside of Portland. It is a great small-mid-sized city, but it's not the be-all, end-all that some people make it out to be. Even the transit, while good for a city of its size is still just good "for an American city of its size." There's a reason I live in Chicago and not Portland, and it's not some dysfunctional reason like "I hate my family" (I don't).
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Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer
Well, no other cities can compare with New York, London and Paris and Tokyo - the "Big Four." :-)
You can compare a lot of cities to those, but those will still be the big four. The 20 or so cities that arguably make up the next global tier are all comparable to the top four, and may even match them in some ways. They just can't match them in all ways.
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Originally Posted by lucky4life
Seattle comes to mind. I make almost 70k a year, and I can't even buy a decent house. My city is cleaner than most, and I do enjoy the lower crime rates, as well as he fact that there's not an overwhelming amount of stupid people around me at all times, but my quality of life was much better when I lived in TX. When I lived in Austin, everything just seemed so much easier. I had more money to spend and the weather didn't make me feel like a prisoner for 6 months out of the year. I've noticed that the people that love Seattle the most have never lived here.
To live in Seattle, you can't be intimidated by rain. If I had kids I rather they grow up in Seattle than Austin, but Seattle isn't perfect. It certainly is better suited to nature-lovers than to hard-core urbanophiles.
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Originally Posted by Standard111
In the U.S., certainly no other city remotely compares to NYC.
Globally, London, Paris, and Tokyo are the only cities that I can think of that can legitimately be compared across a broad spectrum of assets. Even then, I think NYC is stronger than any of those three overall.
I think NYC and London are evenly matched. Paris, while my personal favorite city, lags the other three in some important ways.
Dallas & Houston--dirty, poor air quality, high crime, lots of ghetto areas, lack of emphasis on fitness/nutrition, no one cares about nature, too many religious zealots, lots of covert racism, bad roads, arguably the worst weather in the country (humidity/tornadoes/hail storms/ice storms/hurricanes), incredibly backwards areas nearby, uninspiring topography.
Obviously NYC (the city proper) is a bad choice if you want to live in a "2500 square foot suburban house with picket fence". But that isn't the "normal" American family these days. And if you really wanted that sort of lifestyle, there are tons of suburban areas in a 100-mile radius around the city.
That actually IS the normal American family these days- go to any metro area in America- once you get past the urban core of each city, you have miles upon miles upon miles of suburban type single family homes that are just as the other poster described, inhabited mostly by families with cars. Any small town, any small to medium city, and any major city outside the urban core is that way- which equals the vast majority of the American population.
And to put in my two cents on the overall discussion, I would say Austin, Dallas, and Houston. Very overrated, they just don't live up to what people seem to say about them online. Add to it the miserable heat for over half of the year and the lack of any natural scenery and I just don't get the attraction. Someone mentioned being locked indoors for 6 months in Seattle- but I feel the same way about the late Spring/Summer heat in Texas- I would never be able to get out of the house during that time of the year due to that heat.
Yeah makes as much sense as The Big Bang Theory's Penny character[a Cheesecake Factory waitress] being able to afford an apartment in the LA suburb of Pasadena on her wages alone, when Sheldon Cooper [her neighbor across the hall] and a professor at Cal Tech, needs a roommate to swing it!
Parts of Pasadena are pretty cheap. A lot of people walk down Colorado Blvd through Old Town and assume the whole city is nice and don't realize there's a grittier side. But yeah, I get what you're saying...its inconsistent that a server could afford a unit in a building and yet a professor with a unit in the same building needs a roommate to afford it. Screenwriters take a lot of liberties to tell the stories they want to tell
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Keep up that elitist mentality.
