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So, I just got back from a week-long vacation to NYC, and it's reinforced what I've always felt about it: NYC is a wonderful place to visit, but I'd never want

So, I just got back from a week-long vacation to NYC, and it's reinforced what I've always felt about it: NYC is a wonderful place to visit, but I'd never want to live there. I had a lot of fun, and I wish I could've stayed another week, but actually living and working there? No thank you. I actively do not want to fight through crowds and run to catch connecting trains just to get to and from work every day. I don't want to live in a tiny apartment with no cooling but a room air conditioner sticking out the window. I don't want to be surrounded by noise 24/7. Trust me, for every person who wants to live in NYC because it's actually a city, there's at least one person like me who only wants to set foot in cities to play tourist and would rather live and work in the suburbs. And I'd rather live in modern suburbs at that... in NYC suburbs like Westchester (where I stayed during my trip), the housing stock is so old that even a nice place will be a fixer-upper, and the street layout is horrendously bad because nothing was planned in advance. I strongly prefer living in southwestern suburbs where nothing is older than the late '70s, half the neighborhoods were built in the 21st century, and the suburbs are built around a one-mile grid of six-lane divided highways (e.g. Dallas, Vegas, Phoenix).

ruddct 8y ago
The great thing about NYC (and a thing that is lost on most people visiting the city, including myself before I moved here), is how many options you have for your living situation. Want the crowds, the city life and the noise? Live downtown. Old-school New York? The upper west side. Brownstones on quiet, beautiful streets? Any number of Brooklyn neighborhoods. A quaint New England-y fishing village? City Island. Conservative-leaning, leafy suburbs? Staten Island. The ethnic enclave of your choice? Peppered throughout the city. Cheapo cool kid artist communities? Bushwick/Ridgewood. Want to own a boat and live on the water? The Rockaways. The list goes on and on, and that's not even touching Jersey, Westchester or Long Island. The beauty of the city is that all of these places are unquestionably, culturally 'New York'. They're also, for the most part, quite well connected to the city core on affordable public transit, and in many cases quite affordable by big American city standards.
notyourday 8y ago
If you want a suburban life in NYC you simply move to Queens or the part of Brooklyn that is closer to Queens.

ruddct 8y ago

The great thing about NYC (and a thing that is lost on most people visiting the city, including myself before I moved here), is how many options you have for your living situation. Want the crowds, the city life and the noise? Live downtown. Old-school New York? The upper west side. Brownstones on quiet, beautiful streets? Any number of Brooklyn neighborhoods. A quaint New England-y fishing village? City Island. Conservative-leaning, leafy suburbs? Staten Island. The ethnic enclave of your choice? Peppered throughout the city. Cheapo cool kid artist communities? Bushwick/Ridgewood. Want to own a boat and live on the water? The Rockaways. The list goes on and on, and that's not even touching Jersey, Westchester or Long Island. The beauty of the city is that all of these places are unquestionably, culturally 'New York'. They're also, for the most part, quite well connected to the city core on affordable public transit, and in many cases quite affordable by big American city standards.

notyourday 8y ago

If you want a suburban life in NYC you simply move to Queens or the part of Brooklyn that is closer to Queens.