Cost of living in NYC :merchant: Can YOU afford it?

[Wild self]

i want a professional (educated) black crowd - not just black people

i want to go to stores that carry black hair products

i want black arts events - festivals, dance troupes, theater, concerts - not jay-z level people who tour everywhere, but smaller acts like ledisi or eric roberson to come to my city because there is enough demand for them, etc

i want to put my kids in good schools that also have other black kids

i want to go to clubs and bars that have majority black crowds

i want to eat at places that have cooking from across the black diaspora

i want to go to plays on and off broadway - not wait until some shyt is touring and the b-suqad hits the nearest big city to me

i gotta go to a meeting, but i could keep going

Ain't none of that black owned, and the black professional crowd weak compared to DC and ATL.

 

[phcitywarrior]

The difference is when it comes to NY it ain't much of a trade off, More people move to NYC every year than all the other places you named.
Many do it without a (well paying) job or plan.

All I'm saying is most people get caught up in the mystic and media/TV/Movie portrayal of NYC, but the city ain't for ANYBODY who don't make a certain amount unless you got family to hold you down.

Most of my peoples live in NYC and To me most don't live a good life for their age...After a certain age going to to the AfroPunk fest, First Saturdays at Brooklyn Museum, or various Fashion week events gets old and means nothing if your 30 plus with 3 roommates.


Even the folks with "good jobs" can't save shyt, and barely own anything....


But like I said keep being a free PR rep for a city you don't even live in and aren't from...If you got the bread do you.

This right here. One girl I met from BK didn't just move out from her mom's and get her own place till she was 29. Hence why I say a few years in NYC then bounce unless you wanna work on Wall Street, get into fashion media etc etc.

For some people, they don't mind the "city" living as far they are entertained. That cool for some but not for me after a certain age. I can't be a man at 33 with 4 roomates just for the sake of "being in the city" .


I didn't leave Nigeria for that kind of nonsense.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

The difference is when it comes to NY it ain't much of a trade off, More people move to NYC every year than all the other places you named.
Many do it without a (well paying) job or plan.

All I'm saying is most people get caught up in the mystic and media/TV/Movie portrayal of NYC, but the city ain't for ANYBODY who don't make a certain amount unless you got family to hold you down.

Most of my peoples live in NYC and To me most don't live a good life for their age...After a certain age going to to the AfroPunk fest, First Saturdays at Brooklyn Museum, or various Fashion week events gets old and means nothing if your 30 plus with 3 roommates.


Even the folks with "good jobs" can't save shyt, and barely own anything....


But like I said keep being a free PR rep for a city you don't even live in and aren't from...If you got the bread do you.

the move to NY on a whim crowd is usually young 20 somethings who WANT TO LIVE IN NY, they don't mind starting from nothing. i have two friends that went that route when we graduated college, and they hustled to make shyt happen. that's the point for people who go to NY and do that, there's opportunity to make it, yea a lot of people fall flat or return to their home state after failing, but you can't just up and move to Witchita the same way and just expect to hustle your way into a dope career.

and i've lived there before, still have A LOT of friends who live there and are from there, i spend plenty of time there, so please stop acting like you gotta live there 15 years to know the deal. what "gets old" to people is subjective, if you're 35 still got 4 roommates and you're fine with that cuz you love living in NY, who are you to tell them they don't have a good life because they don't have/can't afford a house, a car, and two kids? they're making that trade off cuz it's worth it to them. everyone doesn't aspire to the same goals

now for the people from there and don't have the means to leave but also would love a better quality of life, yea, it sucks for them. but again, that's not unique to NY the same thing happens in LA and the Bay, it's common for people to still live at home out here into their 30's, it is what it is when you live in a place a grip of people want to be in.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

Ain't none of that black owned, and the black professional crowd weak compared to DC and ATL.

what does black owned have to do with anything? and what do DC and ATL have to do with answering her question about black amenities vs whatever city in CT she said she lived in? some of yall quote shyt for the sake of quoting

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

and that's why it's a transient place. but people in this thread want to front like NYC is not worth the premium for those who seek those amenities, when it is. the "hot areas" (pretty much all of manhattan and parts of bk and queens) aren't long term destinations for many outside the $200K+ crowd, but you can live a normal life further out in some of the boroughs and burbs.

if i'm looking for the best urban experience in the US, i wouldn't mind dropping the extra dough to live in NYC, it easily outclasses the other big cities in the US IMO - this is coming from someone who's lived in or spent significant time in a lot of them.

people also conveniently forget that the amount you're paying for a car note, gas, and insurance is gone in NY, that's on average $400-600 more that you have freed up to go toward higher housing costs.

Raising a family is hell in NYC. That alone is a non starter for me. I agree everyone should experience it but I like how you qualified it- transient. I grew up in it, and there's no way I would go back, until maybe retirement.

 

[ImGucci]

Lol at people trying to convince themselves NYC has nothing to offer unless you’re rich.

Nyc has 8 million people and probably only 5% are rich. If it was that bad , people wouldn’t want to come here

 

[BigMan]

i want a professional (educated) black crowd - not just black people

i want to go to stores that carry black hair products

i want black arts events - festivals, dance troupes, theater, concerts - not jay-z level people who tour everywhere, but smaller acts like ledisi or eric roberson to come to my city because there is enough demand for them, etc

i want to put my kids in good schools that also have other black kids

i want to go to clubs and bars that have majority black crowds

i want to eat at places that have cooking from across the black diaspora

i want to go to plays on and off broadway - not wait until some shyt is touring and the b-suqad hits the nearest big city to me

i gotta go to a meeting, but i could keep going

Don't bother. She's a white trying to compare a New England city to NYCnotuve she disappeared after my posts

Ain't none of that black owned, and the black professional crowd weak compared to DC and ATL.

Do you even live in DC or Atl? You love rambling about those cities and Houston when no one asked

 

[Cave Savage]

Are people really comparing NYC to Houston

 

[AB Ziggy]

Are people really comparing NYC to Houston

I've been to Houston. Even if you live downtown you still need a car to get around

 

[Cave Savage]

I've been to Houston. Even if you live downtown you still need a car to get around

Damn! If people prefer suburban sprawl cities like that it's fine, but they shouldn't act as if there's no appeal to an extremely dense city where you don't need a car, and amenities are within walking distance. There's a fukkin reason people pay so much to live in NYC!

 

[Cave Savage]

And Springfield, MA is definitely not on NYC's level

I'm not saying everyone needs to live in a world class city, but let's not pretend every city has the same amenities available

 

[SupremexKing]

I make almost $200k a year and I live like a fukking pauper. NYC is no place to be if you aspire to save and build wealth. It costs too damn much.

move out of the bowery

 

[TheBigBopper]

move out of the bowery

I haven't lived there in years. I live in BK now

 

[thatrapsfan]

Lagos is wack and over priced. It's basically to to recreate Western ideas of nightlife. The best place I went to in Lagos was the Fela Kuti shrine. The places in the island are just trying to recreate the same stuff we see in any major city in America. The clubs are the same girls with bottle sparkles etc... Those "exclusive" places in Lagos are often frequented by prostitutes. The best nightlife in the continent is Johannesburg. I have had so much fun in SA and it offers a variety of fun nights outside the conventional nightclub.

IMO Southern Africa has the best party music and party culture. Kwaito vibes at a braai You ever been to CIV? Been thinking about looking into the ADB further down the line.

 

[eastsideTT]

Lol at people trying to convince themselves NYC has nothing to offer unless you’re rich.

Nyc has 8 million people and probably only 5% are rich. If it was that bad , people wouldn’t want to come here

i would say more than 8% are rich. to put in in perspective...look at all the big (market rate, not affordable or income based) apartment highrises in manhattan. there are hundreds, maybe thousands... with like 150-300 units in them (conservative estimate). to qualify, you need to show ON PAPER that you make 40x the rent, a year. and the average cost of an apartment is $3k ... so thats $120k a year . and thats the lower end of that 'luxury' spectrum. thousands and thousands of units where people living there are making at least 120k a year, spending (via the 40x qualification calculation) a little over 30% of their income on rent. i know 120k a year isnt rich but anywhere else in the country that's a salary to STRIVE for...that's like the CEILING in a lot of regions.

thats just rentals. look at the hundreds of condos and market rate co-ops. what the price per square foot is, anywhere south of 125th street.

then go out to the boros...neighborhoods like forest hills, jamaica estates, mill basin, manhattan beach, dyker heights, howard beach. countless instances of people paying $700k and up for a 2 family home, tearing the shyt down, and building a massive one-family home from scratch spending millions on construction. thats happening everywhere. it boggles my mind.

i know its not the case, and a majority of residents here are really struggling, but the income disparity is insane. roll through just about 75% of the 5 boros and it'll start to look like EVERYONE has money

i ask myself more and more "where the fukk is all this money coming from?"

shyt.. i was in an uber last weekend (the night of the final game of the ALCS) and my driver recgonized my address and started talking to me about affordable housing, how to get in, etc... this poor guy told me what he was paying for a 3 bed apartment for him and his family in queens. i work in real estate and my estimate of what a 3 bed in his hood goes for was way off; he was paying 2.5x more than what i would have guessed. in the last 10 years...especially the last 5-6 years the rents in a lot of areas have literally doubled