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Anyone rented in the NYC metro area? I realize it's more expensive to live in New York City than in Milwaukee. But for some reason I assumed you could a 1 bedroom apartment of better quality for a $1,000 a month in NYC metro area than these rooms photographed on the blog Yahoo news is reporting on.
Is this typically what one can get in metro NYC (rooms at rooming houses no less) for roughly $1,200 a month?
If so... why don't the movers and shakers in Milwaukee advertise aggressively in metro NYC for the apartments they could get in the City of Milwaukee? Aiming there advertisements at young, college graduates, with debt still on their hands?
Cost of this 1 bedroom condo is $65,000 with a $193 month condo fee. No parking space included though and no window in the bedroom. The windows in living area also face buildings. But it is 600 sq ft of condo.
A typical unit like this in Milwaukee, depending on it's location, will lease in Milwaukee as an apartment for about $600 a month in rent give or take a little more.
Because all the jobs are in NYC not Milwaukee. In fact most people that are actually motivated type A competitive types are LEAVING Milwaukee to go to Chicago, NYC, LA, etc. Milwaukee and to a lesser extent Madison has serious brain drain.
Young college graduates have big dreams, that's why so many move to NYC.
Milwaukee isn't a place people dream about living in.
Don't get me wrong... I love it here.
I understand that. I'm talking about the movers and shakers leading the city in a different and potentially more prosperous direction.
Just because something is one way does not mean it must stay one way. Ample examples from a black President of the United States to some states legalizing same sex marriages. Or the decline of Detroit [1] from one of the mightiest industrial cities of the planet. But perhaps in my mind... within my life time, I as an ethnic Black-American, I saw the economic and social rise of a number of Southern cities (like Atlanta--which became the new Motown or sorts) in which Black-Americans of the North were leaving to go live in. And think about that... my black grandparents were part of the Great Migration northward that the South (they as many were sharecroppers). My black grandparents were from Mississippi.
My German-American grandparents were raised on farms in Wisconsin. My grandfather had a very thick German accent too (they spoke German in his parents home though he was born in the U.S.--I think they were too, as I have Army records of German family members fighting for the Union, for Wisconsin, during the Civil War). My German-American grandfather never finished grade school either. In Milwaukee he worked as watch smith repairing watches before that skilled trade became obsolete. My black grandfather never went to college. I'm not sure he went to or graduated from high school. He worked in factories and breweries of Milwaukee. He used to brag there was so many jobs in Milwaukee then that he literally had gotten fired from one job, walked down the street that same day, and got another good paying factory job.
Both had wives that stayed at home, both had large families (of 7 to 12 children), and both had essentially middle-class incomes that could pay for mortgages and car notes. (Though, my black grandfather drank up and gambled all his paychecks). All without a the need for completing grade school let alone high school or college.
If the prices of those rooms are really reflective of what $1,200 a month can get you in NYC metropolitan then the City of Milwaukee certainly has one edge over New York it can use in a capitalistic, competitive nation. College debt is insane now, too, from what it was in the 1960's (the cost of some universities was about $1,000 a year then for the whole full time tuition--at MATC in Milwaukee the price of one class was roughly $50 and in California all public two-year colleges were entirely free of charge).
New York City simply does not have enough well paying jobs to provide its entire metro area. If it did everyone in the metro area would be living good. I seriously doubt all college graduates in New York City are rolling in cash or that all of them are employed too.
If nothing else, the leaders of Milwaukee could competitively "leach" off NYC's unemployed or underemployed young college graduate class. Draw them to Milwaukee.
But like you note, Milwaukee needs a serious image remake over. It's name as a brand does not sell.
One other thing: that Yahoo news report on that blog now national news can't be the best publicity for NYC in a tight economy. I'm hazarding that guess in part by some of the comments around the country left under the Yahoo news report.
I pay a house payment of $750 and have a modest 2500 square foot house with a huge backyard. I have a Koi pond and I'm fifteen miles away from good fishing, hunting, racing, climbing, etc... And It may be Nebraska and you might talk #$%$ before knowing how great it is. Good for you! But my risk vs reward is better than you and I'm more fulfilled having less "CULTURE" if that's what skinny models and coke is. City that never sleeps? I'll take one that naps daily and has a higher quality citizen base. Lincoln was voted the happiest city in America with the least unemployment this year. Rather have that than the smell of #$%$ on the sidewalk and high rent for nothing.
NYC is a rathole - literally. Live in New Jersey for 1/3rd the cost and ride the PATH train to Manhattan if that is where you work. Better yet, get out of that whole region and get a yob in ATL, Dallas, HOU, PHX, or Salt Lake and buy a nice 2,500 sq.ft. house and pay less taxes.
My wife and I pay a $1,300 a month mortgage in one of the wealthiest counties in the US (Williamson County TN) and have a 3,000 sq ft home with a 3 car garage and a half acre of property. If you pay $1,900 a month for a closet with a mattress on the floor then you are an idiot.
Because all the jobs are in NYC not Milwaukee. In fact most people that are actually motivated type A competitive types are LEAVING Milwaukee to go to Chicago, NYC, LA, etc. Milwaukee and to a lesser extent Madison has serious brain drain.
This is true, though not as much Chicago in my experience. This does make getting a job in Milwaukee pretty easy if you are a marketable professional. There are a number of very attractive companies in this area that I have no doubt I could land a job at just about any day of the year (though I currently work for one so I am not looking ). I will never be unemployed in Milwaukee with my degree and level of experience because like you said, many of the highly marketable professional leave the city for bigger things.
New York City is like London, Tokyo, and Sao Paulo: in a class of it's own. New York City is the financial capital of the United States. It's no way Milwaukee would ever dismantle it. Not in those terms and other terms (sheer landscape of brick & mortar towers; miles of underground public transportation etc.).
Chicago like San Fransisco are other financial centers of the United States. Strong advantages.
But NYC, Chicago, and LA can't provide all the jobs in the United States for its over 300 million population--aside from the fact those cities have their own poverty problems to deal with.
What Milwaukee can do, what I think is reasonably within it's capability, is to become what Atlanta, Georgia and Charlotte, North Carolina were for many young people during the early 1990s. People flocked to these cities from Milwaukee and even Chicago and New York.
Chicago has people leaving the city too. Plenty of people from Chicago have relocated to Southwestern cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas.
But even cities like Las Vegas and Atlanta no longer have the streets paved with gold attraction they used too. I hardly hear anyone even mention Atlanta anymore, and Vegas has a growing problem of former employed casino workers now living in tunnels beneath the city as part of the unemployed.
In terms of rental prices and quality of apartments Phoenix, Arizona bests Milwaukee. I was shocked many weeks ago to find online apartments as good or better than mine (material, visually) that cost less for 2 bedrooms than my one bedroom. And some of these apartment complexes had outdoor pools.
So, Phoenix will beat Milwaukee there.
However, Milwaukee for a mid-sized city still holds some cards, competitively, against other cities, and even Phoenix. It is not true there are no jobs in Milwaukee (not many of course--but the rest of the nation is having that problem too).
AmLaw's ranking of top 100 grossing law firms in the world ranked for 2010 a Milwaukee firm at #45. During 2001 or 2002 it was ranked #22 I think.
Foley & Lardner LLP is an international law firm started in 1842. According to The American Lawyer, the firm ranked 39th on The American Lawyer's 2011 AmLaw 100 rankings of U.S. law firms, with $633,000,000 in gross revenue in 2010. Foley & Lardner has been in The American Lawyer's annual AmLaw 100 rankings of U.S. law firms by revenue since 1986.[citation needed]
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It depends on the profession or specialty. You can open up a dental practice in Milwaukee or get a job as an optometrist and make good money. You can earn a good salary in Milwaukee as physician assistant too or you can likely land work as a CPA (accountant). You are just about guaranteed to have a job in Milwaukee if you successfully pass through UW-Milwaukee's or Marquette's (or any other university in the country) laboratory scientist program. There is a high demand and not enough of them in Milwaukee. However, if you want to make the huge bucks in laboratory science working at a biotech and pharmaceutical company you will likely need to move out to California. Nonetheless, Abott Laboratories in Waukegan, Illinois is a massive complex (I worked on their grounds for a Milwaukee painting contractor doing lead abatement on exterior beams many, many years ago) that works in pharmaceutical too.
I think this is funny. I grew up in Oconomowoc, went to MIAD, and love nearly everything about Milwaukee, but when I was unemployed and my husband's employer offered a transfer to their Manhattan office we took it and ran . I would never begin to compare MKE to NYC!
The job market in MKE was really tough on both of us. Out here, we've both had other companies try to lure us away from our current jobs. Also, Milwaukee has great culture for a city it's size, but that doesn't mean it's even in the same league as NYC.
Do I want to move back someday? Absolutely. It's home. But for now, I'm happily paying a crazy sum for my tiny home in the NYC suburbs ($300k + $8k/yr property taxes for 790sq ft and a small yard).
I think this is funny. I grew up in Oconomowoc, went to MIAD, and love nearly everything about Milwaukee, but when I was unemployed and my husband's employer offered a transfer to their Manhattan office we took it and ran . I would never begin to compare MKE to NYC!
The job market in MKE was really tough on both of us. Out here, we've both had other companies try to lure us away from our current jobs. Also, Milwaukee has great culture for a city it's size, but that doesn't mean it's even in the same league as NYC.
Do I want to move back someday? Absolutely. It's home. But for now, I'm happily paying a crazy sum for my tiny home in the NYC suburbs ($300k + $8k/yr property taxes for 790sq ft and a small yard).
I've been to NYC. I found it easier to speak and communicate with New Yorkers than I did with the Mexicans in Tijuana or the the Arabs in Dubai.
Yes I dare.
The best time I ever had in my life by the way... was in Tijuana. Hands down. They don't give you "poppers" in NYC.
But if I had to live anywhere it would not be Milwaukee or NYC but the UAE or Qatar. Or maybe even some tropical area of Brazil (I simply hate the cold--so I might be able to put up with Brazil's crime and violence for it's tropical luxuries).
I took an art appreciation course at MATC some years ago. Part of the requirement for the course was attending a play and writing a report on it. I did both. And I did not enjoy the play one bit at all. In fact, I suspect I love movies but dislike most plays.
And the Milwaukee play I saw was some ultra-PC liberal stuff that would enamor most New Yorkers I'm sure. I found it insulted my intelligence. The father was black, the mother white, and their biological daughter was East or Southeast Asian. And when I inquired of my professor over this (he was an actor himself in real life), he basically dismissed it as a PC (Politically Correct) artsy trend going on in stage plays today. I'd rather have a white man in black face playing some black character (which is not necessarily racist).
I do think the subways of NYC are cool. Although, I didn't care for the homeless guy riding on the train with a dead cat on his shoulder and begging for money. I didn't give him any money. The New Yorkers all came out their pockets o get him away from them. I feel pretty confident in saying the dude likely would have been beaten up on a bus in Milwaukee or Detroit or even Chicago.
Anyways... I was amazed with the sheer size of NYC. It was far bigger than I expected. And the Statue of Liberty was far smaller than I expected.
Overall I didn't find NYC to be anymore non-American than any other place I had been to in the United States. What I mean by that it was not as culturally different as I found the UAE or Mexico.
You are free to protest, however. Having gone to MIAD I would think NYC would be the logical place to go. Kind of like if I earned a bachelor degree in biomolecular engineering from MSOE moving out to California might be a logical thing to do. Somehow I doubt your MIAD degree is taking you to Phuket, Thailand conducting research in oceanography.
However, I'd like to hear what it is I don't "secretly" know I can experience in NYC that I can't in Milwaukee or San Diego or Jackson, Mississippi?
I can already hazard a guess what you're going to say. A night club that has 5 bar counters instead of 2. Wow! Now I'm blown away. Theater and art shows that make no sense but given alcohol is being served, and you've got gay people (why do NYC bars have so many effeminate gay men working behind the bars?) dressed weird as h__, and everyone thinks they're "so cool," a picture of a man with his tongue stuck out sunk in a jar of urine equals "art." So why not be homeless and poor in NYC rather than rich in Miami right? NYC has the "coolness." People in Milwaukee are just to stupid and boring to figure out it's totally cool and sensible to have a Japanese baby come out the womb of a white woman who was impregnated by a black man.
Point here is I was raised from diapers on the North Side of Milwaukee. My father an Army vet was reared in poverty on the North Side by an alcoholic and gambling father that made good money at a brewery. Going without food often, putting cardboard in his sneakers with holes in them, and wearing spring coats in Wisconsin winters. He became a U.S. Federal agent right here in Milwaukee. So, my North Side nose tells me poverty sucks wherever it is and being broke in NYC is not "cool."
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). I will never be unemployed in Milwaukee with my degree and level of experience because like you said, many of the highly marketable professional leave the city for bigger things.
And when I inquired of my professor over this (he was an actor himself in real life), he basically dismissed it as a PC (Politically Correct) artsy trend going on in stage plays today. I'd rather have a white man in black face playing some black character (which is not necessarily racist).
Now I'm blown away. Theater and art shows that make no sense but given alcohol is being served, and you've got gay people (why do NYC bars have so many effeminate gay men working behind the bars?) dressed weird as h__, and everyone thinks they're "so cool," a picture of a man with his tongue stuck out sunk in a jar of urine equals "art." So why not be homeless and poor in NYC rather than rich in Miami right? NYC has the "coolness." People in Milwaukee are just to stupid and boring to figure out it's totally cool and sensible to have a Japanese baby come out the womb of a white woman who was impregnated by a black man. 
