Paying the Rent in New York

[Master Shake]

Originally Posted by pottebaum

Yeah, 950 doesn't sound bad at all. Which neighborhood do you lived in, Crawford (if you don't mind)?

That rent is crazy low.

[PhillyRising]

Originally Posted by Jularc

NYC sometimes feels like a bunch of cities that are right next to eachother to make a super city.

That is exactly what they were prior to the Consolidation in 1899.

[skylife]

Originally Posted by crawford

How would I save money and maintain my lifestyle if I moved to another city? There is no American city as transit-oriented as NYC. In every other city I would be losing some measure of quality of life by choosing to remain car-free.

I haven't driven a car in 7 years and it has been a breeze. I'm just sayin'.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by JMancuso

they are both good but chicago style is just very heavy.

anyway, i have been dying to come up and check out chicago. never been there and it is next on my must see list.

Let me know when you plan on heading up there, and I'll meet up with you!

Aaron (Glowrock)

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by skylife

I haven't driven a car in 7 years and it has been a breeze. I'm just sayin'.

same for me in chicago. if my quality of life was so degraded by going car free in chicago as crawford assumes, i would have sucked it up and bought a car by now, but i haven't because going car-free in chicago is eezy-peezy and it makes WAY too much finacial sense to ditch the wheels in chicago. there is no doubt that NYC is far and away the best city in america to go car free in, transit coverage there, specifically rail transit coverage, is on a whole order of magnitude larger than any other city in this country. and it has far and away the most pedestrian-oriented culture to boot. but those things do not mean NYC is the only place that's easy to go car-free in. i get around chicago just fine. the main difference is that in a city like chicago, car-freers like me are the minority, whereas in NYC, they are the majority.

every city in america is certainly more car-oriented than NYC, but there cities out there where carlessness is still conveniently doable. i guess perspective plays a big role in it as well. at some point i guess an argument could be made that going car free in any city is convenient and doable, it's just how much you're willing to put up with. also, the way one structures their life in a given city (where they live, where they work, where they play, etc.) greatly affects how easy being auto-free really is. in new york, it's probably an issue of there being so much more area of the city that is open to easy car-free living than other cities like boston, chicago, or san fran where car-free living can be easy, but not neccessarily so for every corner of the city, as in the big apple.

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

one of my big priorities of living is to live in a big urban city where i can lead an easy car-free life. on the surface NYC sounds perfect for me, but i have other priorites as well, and one of those is being close to my family, in touch with my roots. NYC offers me neither of those things. i don't live in chicago just because it was a big city that offered me an easy car free life, i live here because i am of here. chicago isn't a city i chose, it chose me. chicago isn't a city i merely live in, chicago is my identity, it's in my genes, it's my very soul. i know that in our transitory world these old-timey concepts of lineage, ancestry & and heritage may seem quaintly cute and anachronistic to those of the globe trotting generation, but to me it's very, very important.

Amen to that Dan! I feel exactly the same way and I couldnt have said it better myself. New York City is only too expensive to me because I am from Chicago, I dont find Chicago to be expensive because I am from here and I am of this city, if I had been born and raised in NYC I probably would have just adapted to the cost of living because I have a strong sense of place, I just happen to have been born in Chicago of all places. To me thats what urbanity itself is about, a human built environment with a sense of place and the anti-thesis of urbanity or what can be called "sprawl, auto-centric suburbia, exurbia, or whatever, etc, etc" is a lack of a sense of place, in other words a place that is no place. Just how St. Augustine viewed evil as an absense of good I view antiurbia (suburbia is too vague of a term since suburbs can be urban) as the absence of urbanity, the absense of place.

This has to do with "paying the rent in NYC" because people are willing to pay extra money to give themselves the meaning in life that urbanity gives them. Those that always choose to live in the cheapest place imaginable IMO simply dont define their lives with any meaning of place but rather they define themselves through material goods or other things at the expense of place.

Ok, so that is a bit deep, almost like its a "theology of urbanity" or something but I guess it shows that if I wasnt already a Catholic, urbanity and Chicago in particular would be my religion!

[NewYorkYankee]

(Warning, die hard NYC fan about to post)


Okay, here's my spin as a die hard NYC fan:

Expensive-sort of, but once you cut out rent and taxes, everything costs the same. Really.

Hassle-I guess, but to me, the city may be busy around me, but I am not compelled to hurry.

People-greatest people in the world, hands down. Just have to get to know them

Here's what NYC does offer:

-People and flavors from places you've never even heard of
-Unimagineable array of things to do
-public transit is best in the world, bar none
-enriching daily life
-neighborhood feel
-outer boroughs filled with family-oriented communites with big homes, parks and good schools
-economic command center, oppertunites abound
-As someone of Black/White heritage, the racism is non-existant (save for SI). Where I live in Bucks co PA.....they're just not down.

Wanna know why NY is so great? Because you may bitch when you live there, but once you've had it, you can't go back. You'll always yearn for that 3 am chinese and 24 hour subway.

[KB0679]

Originally Posted by NewYorkYankee

Wanna know why NY is so great? Because you may bitch when you live there, but once you've had it, you can't go back. You'll always yearn for that 3 am chinese and 24 hour subway.

That's something I'm absolutely yearning to experience right about now, since I work 3rd shift and I work in a city (Charlotte) where even the so-called 24 hour fast food joints aren't always open 24 hours, as was the case at 4 am today.