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If the average person's making $55,000 in the city, then yes, it's a strong economy. The median household income in New York City is 52K. Most people live in their own little socioeconomic bubbles, and leucite of the larger economic reality of our country. I'm on the low-end of upper-middle-class, but we're in a city without a lot of wealth. That puts us curiously close to the elite. My daughter has classmates whose parents are professional athletes, and parents who greet Air Force One, when the president is in town. One of my neighbors is a former Treasury Secretary.
My wife and I find ourselves asking if we can actually afford to re-do our kitchen or take that $10k family vacation (we didn't do either). We're asking whether we can truly afford to put both kids through private school, or if we should just move to the 'burbs. In reality, we're doing really well for ourselves; great lifestyle, healthy savings rate, low debt. We're just around people who are far more affluent. If I didn't have perspective, I could easily find myself feeling poorer than I actually am.
A 55k job is nothing special, but it's more than this country's median household income, and for some people, it's the impossible dream. Gotta keep things in perspective.
In affluent Bellevue, WA, there have already been accounts of Asian immigrants who arrive poor, cramming all their family into a tiny rental that happens to be in or near a wealthier neighborhood. The logic is that although they can't live in luxury in such an expensive neighborhood, at least their kids will be going to some of the best performing public schools and they will be in a more or less safe neighborhood. Some of them will never be able to afford to buy a house but the hope is that their kids will do well in school, get a good job, and get the house. On the other hand, do you want your kids being the poor ones in a school full of wealthier kids, especially if its noted for flambuoyant materialism? Social networking is often a huge part of success, and if your kids cant match up materially/culturally to other kids, they may have a hard time making friends and networking.
It's harder to social network as an immigrant, for an Asian immigrant prioritizing education makes sense. The immigrant kids aren't comparing themselves to the wealthier kids but those of similar background.
I also consider Phoenix a very pretentious metropolitan area. It is economically growing very fast but the residents are very pretentious. The keep up with the Jones mentality is huge in Phoenix especially when it comes to vehicles.
I think more aloof and distant than pretentious per say, as a whole. Scottsdale though yes pretentious, maybe Paradise Valley, too. West of Phoenix--the Sun Cities, Peoria, Surprise I don't think so. Cave Creek, horse countrish vibe, space. Carefree, probably more true wealth and was not as pretentious as Scottsdale IMO.
Like I alluded to but some people didn't get, the people WITHOUT actual wealth around here pretend to have the biggest c**ks. I worked in the custom pool industry for years. Actual rich mofos were almost always super nice and rolled generally humble and bling free... the ten-dollar-an-hour waiters/waitresses on the other hand. Insufferable. Too good for everybody.
Like I alluded to but some people didn't get, the people WITHOUT actual wealth around here pretend to have the biggest c**ks. I worked in the custom pool industry for years. Actual rich mofos were almost always super nice and rolled generally humble and bling free... the ten-dollar-an-hour waiters/waitresses on the other hand. Insufferable. Too good for everybody.
You will always find try-hard pretentious folk in any city who fluff up the image but have nothing to back it up. Once a city becomes famous for a particular subculture or trend, it starts getting hordes of wannabes who go overboard on trying to project the image and upstaging everyone else. Scottsdale has a reputation for being a nouveau riche Sunbelt suburb that is cheaper than SoCal (whether its true or not doesnt matter), so its no surprise that the kinda of people you describe are moving there. I have experienced the opposite as well, i.e. smug liberals of Seattle, know-it-all nerds in DC who want you to think they are the Nobel Peace prize winner of tomorrow. Even in Midwestern cities like Omaha, people go overboard trying to play up the "humble Midwesterner" image (yes, it is possible to overdo it), and it's still BS. At the end of the day, it's all silly high school horseplay that somehow still exists amongst adults.
Last edited by skidamarink; 06-23-2016 at 05:43 AM..
From what I have experienced Atlanta is the number one for me.
The reality show boom in Atlanta has a lot of $30K people trying to live like Nene Leakes.
To me Dallas but not so much Fort Worth is also the same. So much emphasis on being over the top in fashion, oversized housing and cars and being seen and noticed.
I don't consider what happens in Dallas to be people emulating celebrity lifestyles. Here, it's considered normal to have a large house with a new car from a "respectable" brand like Toyota, Honda, Chevy, Lexus, and Cadillac, among others. People don't treat it like a big deal because they believe that what they are doing is just emulating the middle class lifestyle.
When I think of "celebrity life," I imagine people in either skyscraper apartments or mansions (like on celebrity tours) in large, urban coastal cities, driving around top of the line sports cars or other luxury brands.
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