Coming from New Hampshire: this is just fantastically untrue. NYC is about one hundred times more violent than where I live. It is so thoroughly not the same that I can usually tell when people come from cities simply based on how nervous they are. I think most people don't realize how badly it affects them, or how violent cities are versus "the rest of America".

Some crime stats: https://imgur.com/a/qDKqC59

edit: NYC has 5.8 violent crimes per 1,000 people, which is 45% more violent than the USA median (4.0). I have no idea how 45% more violent got a reputation as "safer than the rest of America" but it's not true.

In NYC the most dangerous areas are pretty far out from (edit: downtown) Manhattan and you'd really have to go out of your way to get there. Anecdotally I lived in Chelsea and worked in Union Square for a few years and never witnessed any real crime, violent or otherwise. By comparison I also lived in SF where the bad parts are unavoidably located in the center of the city and I've witnessed multiple violent crimes over a similar time period. The neighborhoods in a city you pass through on a day to day basis really matter in terms of defining your experience.

Check out this map for stats: https://maps.nyc.gov/crime/

East Harlem (part of Manhattan) is as dangerous as the Bronx and is very different from the Chelsea where you live. Manhattan is not a uniformly safe place. Also, NYC subway is filthy, disgusting and sometimes plain dangerous. Car traffic is worse than before COVID. There seem to be more cars on the streets, for people are avoiding subway and are using cars more often than before.

(There are lots of attractions to the neighborhood: old buildings, pretty side streets, good food, convenient access to museums, and one of the most reliable subway lines in the system.)

I didn't fit the traditional Harlem demographic (ex-FAANG employee, startup founder, etc) but found the neighborhood to have solid access to the rest of Manhattan, an increasing number of amenities, proximity to Central Park, and an overall appealing character compared to the increasingly sterile areas of Manhattan

If/when I move back to NYC I would certainly consider living in Harlem again.

"Where things happen", aka Manhattan? Tbh, Manhattan kinda blows these days. It's more or less a sterile, disneyified, yuppy, consumerist grazing ground from 100th down, with the exception of alphabet city and Chinatown. But even Chinatown's changing, unfortunately. Feels like the old Chinatown Fair shutting down was a signal.

Idk Manhattan has a few solid areas that have held up over the years, but I personally try to avoid it unless my boys and I have a skate session or heading to a museum.

Also, the commute from the boroughs really isn't bad. If you really need to get to Manhattan you're probably looking at 45-50 min on average, which is whatever... unless you live in bumfuck nowhere where there's not a stop within a mile or two.

It's more or less 30 min minimum to get anywhere regardless of location and there are beautiful and interesting spots all over this city, not just Manhattan. Why not explore?

As others remarked correctly, aggregated numbers are useless and not representative for the avg person. If you truncate NYC’s crime numbers by stripping out high crime areas such as Brownsville or the South Bronx, crime here is shockingly low. Even more so if you correct for crime that would be er affect you unless you’re in some sort of drug gang (many of the violent crimes are gang on gang crimes).

Also saw folks here mention East Harlem — I assume that’s a joke?! That hasn’t been a “dangerous” neighborhood for 35+ years. It’s now a very sought after area esp. for families, and it’s got plenty of artisanal BS stores that come with gentrified areas. I can’t afford to rent there.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-07/is-new...

This makes no sense. It's a mobile city. You can live on the UWS but have to go downtown to see a doctor, or work in midtown but commute in from the Bronx or Queens to go to work. The vast majority do not live and work in the same neighborhood let alone work and live in the same nice and safe neighborhood.

>"Anecdotally I lived in Chelsea and worked in Union Square for a few years and never witnessed any real crime, violent or otherwise."

Not only is that a walking commute but there is literally not a single bad block between anywhere in Chelsea and Union Square.

>"The neighborhoods in a city you pass through on a day to day basis really matter in terms of defining your experience."

Yes exactly, where do you think all of the service workers that are back bone of the city travel through on their commute, often at night? Hint, it's not Chelsea.

If I was thinking of moving to somewhere in NYC, I would want to know just that: could I live there safely? If someone answers that topic with “well, many people are exposed to crime, and it’s really unfortunate, and change is really desired”, that’s all true, but that doesn’t answer my question. If one were to tell me “yes, it can be fairly safe if you have the means to live here, and commute over there, and mostly hang around this place”, that doesn’t somehow minimize or deny the plight of those who are less fortunate. These are two separate topics that are both worth discussing.

Edit:

I now live in Dallas. I don’t know about crime stats at the moment, but if you’ll allow me to speak of how safe I feel in the city: I would say that there’s no way to live in Dallas (assuming you want an active social life that involves music, drinks, shows, etc) that feels safe. The usual hangout spots in Dallas (e.g. Deep Ellum) are right next to shady overpasses, sections of street with vacant buildings with busted out windows and broken street lights. So much of the city is in a state of disrepair. I feel like I’m gambling with my life if I go anywhere remotely interesting in Dallas.

When I lived in Carrol Gardens in Brooklyn, I could walk to the coffee shop, or go to dozens of great restaurants and shops, get late night tacos or pizza, and never feel like I was in a sketchy area. Granted, I was privileged to have the means to live where I did.

If someone then asks me where I would prefer to live on the basis of apparent safety, I would say Brooklyn. If I was then asked if everyone feels safe in Brooklyn, I would say “no” — if you live in a low income, high crime area, you’re not going to feel safe — and that’s an unfortunate reality for many people. Both things are simultaneously true.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/23/business/goldman-sachs-employ...

Which is not really the same thing at all…

The implication there is that the areas with fewer tourists have higher true rates of crime than the official stats, which makes the overall case worse...

That's not true, and my stats above are solely Manhattan.

I find it amazing that in the US, you can walk from one neighborhood into the other, and suddenly have it be 100x more dangerous.

It’s so apparent that I’m still surprised.

I'll admit I'm surprised it's still an order of magnitude, I share GP's sensibility that the cities are generally much safer than perceived

[1] https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/crim...

I'd also factor in the numbers are higher also because policing is very robust. I can't think of any other city where I saw a cop nearly as often as NYC, they're everywhere.

Anecdotally, I never felt unsafe there. Although where I grew up crime was rampant, common, and expected- so comparatively NYC seemed really safe, and it wasn't hard to avoid high risk places/situations. I do think people hype up the crime numbers, and forget to consider the variables present in a megalopolis which aren't present in smaller cities.

That number doesn't really matter, does it? I'd think the average number of people there each day is much closer to the relevant number.

Yes, and that "average number of people there each day" would include all the non-residents/tourists in the city. Which is a non-trivial number at all for NYC.

So if there really is an 11x increase in crime, along with a 10x increase in yearly population, that's actually a huge increase in crime on a per-person per-day basis.

Correct, but NYC had 66 million visitors in 2019[0], which is way more than 1mil you guesstimated.

Which, conversely, would increase the daily population by 20k*66=1.32mil. 1.32mil is a non-trivial increase in daily population at all.

0. https://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/osdc/tourism-industry-ne...

For this reason, researchers typically use homocides to make comparisons, because that's consistently defined and tracked across jurisdictions, and because it's harder to manipulate those statistics when recording.

NYC - particularly Manhattan - has a much lower homocide rate than other places.

One of the reasons I left NYC. I'm now in one of the safest neighborhoods, we have virtually no violent crime, except from the occasional visiting criminals.

Could you explain that? Crime is trending down in NYC over the last 20 years.

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_...

But you're also ignoring the fact that in other parts of the country these crime rates are 1-10% of these numbers. NYC could be much safer, if the right policies were applied.

I believe the south has the highest per capita murder rate which is mostly Republican led. It's states with lower education and higher poverty that have high murder rates. I think blaming Democrats or Republicans is misguided. We're a country pretty evenly split and there's no place that's a panacea.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/10/blame-rur...

People use these sorts of stats in Seattle to pretend that crime hasn’t gotten worse in the last few years.

The reality on the ground is much different, most people just don’t bother reporting crime, because it’s not worth the effort and the police probably won’t come anyway.

I know this sounds insulting but you seem like seem to have bought into a narrative of them versus us. There are ills on all sides, we are all humans who are mostly trying to make it through. Yes, there are people that are terrible at their jobs and cause harm. Yes, they are in both parties. If there was a third party they would be there too. Sure, vote and support people that align with your values but life is not a binary thing.

So dishonest. And gaslighting.

And I am glad my taxes don't support Democrats' pro-crime policies.

In Portland mobs fully control the streets, drag people out of cars and beat them, they threaten people, while police is just standing and watching. This is on video, not propaganda.

So you follow-up propaganda with hyperbole, and pretend that extreme outliers are somehow a normal representation.

There's also plenty of evidence of Republican-run cities locking up innocent people, or conservatives attempting a violent coup during a transition of power. It's a silly game.

Parts of Florida great. Never been to Texas.

I think small stuff like this just adds to your total anxiety without you even realizing it. It's really sad how difficult it is to live in extremely safe, small villages like my childhood home nowadays.

When researching getting a lock for a personal scooter NYC always comes up as ground zero for problems with theft, to the point where much of the advice is to not even lock it up but bring it inside.

Statistically, where I live now is the same or significantly worse than Austin. But with the lower population, there are simply fewer incidents.

(I am in a doorman building.)

I use bike shares opportunistically, but they are not a reliable mode of transport.

As a pure anecdote, my husband had his bike outside in Prospect Heights for 3 or 4 years literally not moved. It had a lock but he didn’t even use the bike. It got weathered and abused and after literal years, I think it was finally stolen. In Seattle, where his has been broken into multiple times in a locked garage in our luxury building, I have no doubt that an untouched bike would have lasted a few weeks at most.

But that’s all anecdotal. I can say that in the 5 years or so that I used the CitiBike system, I never had a problem either finding a bike and the pricing was also more than fair. I frequently would take a bike from near Union Square and ride across the Brooklyn Bridge home on nice afternoons. I never once had a problem getting a bike or returning it to its drop off place near my apartment.

And the app/locator lets you know the status of bikes at any time so you can know if there is a bike at a specific site or not.

This might have changed in the last few years, but if anything, the city had a hard time convincing people to use the bikes. The system is a lot more efficient than the Lime bike/scooter setup that a lot of other cities like Seattle have (people in Seattle also don’t know how to use bike lanes and use the fucking sidewalks like assholes, because Seattle).

It really feels more careless to just ditch your bicycle on the side of the road and forget about it than lock it. I admit it's not a big thing, but as I tried to convey, small things like this add up.

p.s. I really like your content!

I don't think that's true: NYC is at 5.8 violent crimes per 1,000, and the national median sits at 4.0. That's 45% more violent than the median. That's not small! I feel like some PR firm must have implanted this idea in everyone's minds that NYC is somehow magically safer, but it's not showing up in the stats, and if the stats are skewed by reporting its almost certainly worse, not better.

Or maybe they're only comparing themselves to Chicago and Rio de Janeiro?

(My mom felt differently and would often force me to take a car home if I was leaving the office at 10pm in NYC — but my mom would feel that way about any city I lived in.)

In SF, I’ve felt *very* unsafe being out before midnight (I was once propositioned for prostitution 4 times in a 2 block walk). Same in Seattle, where my own neighborhood has felt downright unsafe after 7pm on certain nights. Same in parts of Atlanta. Same in parts of LA.

I can’t compare it to places like New Hampshire or the suburbs — but I’m a female who weighs between 105 and 110lbs and yes, I’m white so that might help me, and I haven’t been to every part of NYC late at night — I’m sure there are places I wouldn’t want to be alone — but I do think that it is generally safe.

I was shocked by how much more crime was in Seattle than where I lived in Brooklyn.

There is another part of New York which is just that people generally leave you alone. So you’re surrounded by people who you can call out for help to, but you’re also not usually badgered by randos on the street.

I can’t talk about statistics but I can talk about how safe I feel. And I feel safer in NYC than any other major US city I’ve lived in or visited.

This passage[1] probably sums up the difference between aggregate crime stats and NYC residents' own assessments:

> Looking at NYPD crime reports for 2010, 2015, and 2020, we find that about 1% of streets in NYC produce about 25% of crime, and about 5% of streets produce about 50% of crime. This is consistent across the three years, showing that a very small proportion of streets in the city are responsible for a significant proportion of the crime problem.

I wonder if this phenomenon is different in different cities. Are the "shapes" of crime all "spiky" in New York, but more spread out in Seattle?

[1] https://www.manhattan-institute.org/weisburd-zastrow-crime-h...

Granted, sometimes we'd visit smaller, safer college towns, like Purdue's Lafayette Indiana University's Bloomington, or Ball State's Muncie, IN. Only Muncie had a lower crime rate than NYC. Then again, Notre Dame's South Bend (17.3) University of Evansville (10.1), and Rose-Hulman's Terre Haute (14.6) kind of dispelled the idea of college town safefy.

My current town is at 36 violent crime per 1000 residents, but the statistics are collected differently, so it may not be an exact comparison.

NYC isn't safer than the majority of the country. But, compared to where I've been, it's felt pretty safe every time I stopped by.

NY is generally safer than Chicago, LA, Seattle, Boston, and Fort Worth; Wikipedia places it in 59th place for most violent crime per capita amongst the nation’s largest 100 cities.

Much of that is because NYC has drastically fewer transportation deaths than most of the US. The worst states have literally twenty times as many traffic deaths as NYC.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-07/is-new...

Its trivially true that dense urban environments are going to have different baseline patterns of crime

It also seems pretty clear to me that this is the context OP was speaking in, given that almost everything else he described are features of big cities.

What does that even mean - "generally" safer? Saying "generally" and "the rest of America" are nebulous to the point of being completely meaningless. If I were to compare hunting accidents, wild fires and car accidents in NYC compared to the "rest of the America" then yeah sure. Have a look at these NYPD crime stats from May and tell me that it's safer than the entire "rest of America."

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00050/nypd-citywide-cri...

In terms of homicides though the US is less safe than Pakistan, India, Iran and Egpyt and other big countries.

And while this reminds me of XKCD: Heatmap[0], the density of crime also matters when it's where you live, and the actual proximity you are to frequent violent crimes.

[0] https://xkcd.com/1138/

I don't have stats for Amherst specifically, but here is a comparison between NYC and NH as a whole:

NYC: 5.5 murders per 100k + 1.6 auto fatalities per 100k = 6.1 deaths per 100k

NH: 1.0 murders per 100k + 8.9 auto fatalities per 100k = 9.9 deaths per 100k

I would still say Manchester, Rochester, Nashua ETC are 10x trashier and more neglected than even the most run down alley in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens.

That said, I shared a Lyft to the airport pre-dawn one time and where we picked up the other rider was a little more exciting than I would ever want to be.

> People in rural areas don’t lock their doors for the same reason they don’t wear seatbelts and drive drunk everywhere. They just don’t care.

Do you think the attitude towards risk is because they truly don't care about having their belongings stolen, or because they know there is less risk of that happening? Having lived in a rural area and in a few cities, my experience is the latter. No one wants to be robbed.

Also, people in rural areas driving drunk is mostly due to lack of transportation options. I'm certainly not condoning it, but Uber doesn't travel out into the sticks and there is no bus or train to hop on.

I don’t think that refutes their point that they don’t care. Having come from a rural area myself, the decision was to drink at home or a friends I was staying over at rather than drive drunk. They don’t care about the consequences compared to doing what they want

I also come from a rural area and I think you're missing some detail in the individual calculus. The chance of negative consequences drop so precipitously in some areas that, coupled with poor transportation options, it becomes primarily an individual risk in their eyes. They don't see a big issue with being over the limit when it's a road they drive everyday and encountering even a single vehicle on the way back is rare. It's not a lack of caring, it's just a different calculation.

I've never drove drunk (or even buzzed) and I'm not defending the practice, just trying to explain their point of view.

Being called a pussy for instance for not wanting to drive while smashed isn’t a result of a lack of transportation.

Neither, they just take fewer mitigations in response to the same level of risk because of cultural habits.

America in general (both rural and urban) has a very high crime rate by developed world standards. I grew up in <redacted> which has a lower crime rate than 99% of America, including the parts where people brag about how it's so safe that no one locks their doors, and everyone locks the doors to their houses and cars anyway, because that's just the cultural norm.

I’m in a rural area. I wear my seatbelt, along with everyone else I know. I don’t even drink. The only people I’ve ever known that have driven drunk were dumb teenagers. I lock my door, but I not only kept my high school car unlocked - I left the keys in it.

For two years I did that, and the only time it was “stolen” was when my friends skipped class, used it to drive to the bakery for some doughnuts, and deliberately parked it elsewhere as a prank. Do you really think that’s how it would have worked out in any major city?

I remember it being major news when a few houses were burgled when I was a kid.

Now, the biggest town in the county? Crime happens there all the time. It’s only 20,000 people but a lot of them are…lower rung.

I think that’s the real difference. When I walk in a major city or even that town, crime might happen to me. In the 20 mile radius around my house it’s very unlikely, and I very rarely see a cop unlike in NYC.

On a per capita basis "a few houses being burgled" in a rural area is probably more burglaries than NYC sees.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-07/is-new...

You are less likely to be murdered in NYC than the average rural area. I don't know where you live and it's possible that your rural area is safer than average, but in general the myth that so many smug rural Americans subscribe to that the typical rural area is safer than big bad New York City is just totally, completely wrong.

This doesn't match my experience living in a rural area. Most of the people I knew either avoided drinking (your WASP) or drank with their neighbors (your redneck.)

Rural areas account for 19% of the population but 56% of the DUI fatalities. That means a 5.5x higher fatality rate per capita.

Obviously in The Bronx the numbers are much worse (9.28), and in Brooklyn they're a tiny bit better (5.43) but still well over USA median. Queens (3.25) is safer than median, though.

Marble hill was once fully a part of the northernmost point of Manhattan island, but a canal was cut south of it which turned Marble hill into an actual island all by itself. Later, the waterway to the north of Marble hill was diverted into the canal, so Marble Hill became connected by land to the Bronx and separated by water from the island of Manhattan, but it is still considered a part of Manhattan borough...

Garbage in, garbage out.

If you want to demonstrate that NYC is less safe (and it may well be), focus on the high risk factors, not the salient ones.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/191720/traffic-related-i...

However, I do also think an important question is "safe for whom?" Depending on your race, sexual orientation, gender presentation, etc, rural American communities can foster their own distinct unease. Those are the places where you keep your head down, self-censor, try not to draw attention. When is the absence of reported crimes in a state which is 92.8% white "safety" and when is it something else?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crime-newyork-statistics/...

From a random search, I got 2.8 violent crimes per 1,000 people citywide, which means all 5 boroughs. For just New York county (Manhattan), the most official statistic I could find is 4.57 in 2019[2].

[1]: https://www.lx.com/community/nyc-crime-rates-how-dangerous-i...

[2]: https://criminaljustice.cityofnewyork.us/individual_charts/v...

https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ny/new-york/crime

I think, at least in today's culturally polarized environment, there are a lot of people who would be understandably nervous and on guard traveling to rural America, and it has nothing to do with what crime looks like in their home city.

There’s hospital quality, time spent in private automobiles (one of the most dangerous things Americans do), risk of natural disaster, etc etc.

I think it’s very reflective of an anti-urban bias

Personally, I'd rather be alone on foot in NYC than alone on foot in some small town where I'd stand out. Maybe because I grew up in a city and have traveled to many places, maybe because of my characteristics that make me feel vulnerable when I'm the outsider in a less diverse area, or maybe because I've lived in a city far more violent than NYC- so for me the things I visit for are worth the possible risk of crime.

NYC isn't even on the top 50 most violent cities in the world, which is quite a feat when you consider how things used to be there in the 80s/90s.

Parent commenter is completely correct that NYC is safer not just than the average location in America, but also the average rural area.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-07/is-new...

Maybe your very specific neck of the woods is very rich and safe but I don’t know why you felt the need to butt in and make the conversation about you, OP never claimed that NYC was the absolute number 1 safest place in the country.

For me, personally, I'm disappointed by how few world cities the US has. NYC and Chicago are really it. My silly benchmark for what makes a city a world city is that it operates 24hrs a day (at least parts of it). Chicago barely does but I think it counts. Everywhere else in the US just dies past 10pm and especially past 2am.

Miami also meets every single one of these metrics and has later night life than NYC. New Orleans has 24 hr night life. Vegas too.

Los Angeles has a higher foreign born population than NYC.

Las Vegas operates 24 hours a day if that's what you want.

I think what you mean by "World City" is actually just "Party Zone".

> except in a few specific areas

Yeah that's what I meant. I don't mean "the whole city is awake". I mean that there are amenities available in certain areas more or less 24/7, because of the density, there is a critical mass of 2nd and 3rd shift workers, and other "off-hours" workers who have different schedules and make use of it.

For those interested, here's where the alpha beta gamma and -/ /+[+] classification system comes from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization_and_World_Cities...

You've got a very cosmopolitan view of what the world is. You should consider changing that.

On NYC, it has the best subway system in the US, but by global standards, it is filthy, disgusting, and unreliable. Any criticism leveled at the NYC subway is countered by Newyorkers saying "but we have 24/7 service while city XYZ does not!" However that same 24/7 service is arguably a big contributing factor for the NYC subway's many ills.

Seoul, and perhaps Tokyo and Hong Kong and other cities, arguably have an even more hardcore workaholic and party culture than NYC, but get along just fine with subways that don't run 24/7 so basic maintenance and cleaning can take place.

Edit: None of this comment was meant to detract, just a comparison in agreement to the city I'm nore familiar with. Maybe Toronto's different

Why?, because when you have all these people crammed together - weird stuff happens and that's what makes NYC magical. We're constantly mixing together, in the subways, bars, restaurant, parks ,etc. You get to see firsthand all the humanity of this city. No other city in America has replicated that.

I discount DC a little because a lot of that is government and defense related (not a bad thing, just not my cup of tea).

Boston has a lot of diversity in tech, lots of health/pharma like Moderna, web companies like TripAdvisor and Wayfair, robotics like Boston Dynamics, tons of startups doing ai/ml, and it seems like every big company has a substantial presence here (Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce…)

Boston is definitely bigger for every other type of engineering though than NYC. Most non programming engineering jobs in NYC would either be for a niche startup or would have something to do with real estate.

The Boston tech scene and culture (outside of physically being on the MIT campus) is awful. TripAdvisor and Wayfair, your examples, are two companies I would aggressively advise any friends from even talking to. While all the major players are there now it took them a long time to get there. Comp in Boston still lags NY and SF considerably, and in general Boston has always had a resistance to anything "new", it's politically liberal but otherwise a very conservative city. The biotech companies there have always been way more heavy on the bio than the tech. I've worked for Boston area tech companies multiple times , before and after the tech boom, and would never work for a Boston area tech company again.

NYC is on a whole other level. Not only do you have all the major players with much larger campuses there are far more startups and early IPO companies. There is the also entire world of HFT companies (Boston's finance scene is largely very old school investment management companies) which alone would be worthy of making NYC a techhub. I also disagree with your claims about the concentrate of tech companies. Tech related meetups and events in NYC are much larger, more active and have more exciting participants than in the Boston area.

Simply being in the orbit of MIT can have that effect, along with everything else you listed.

The issue with NYC from a perception as a hub of any one thing is that it's just so big with so many different things going on that tech just seems like one of many things going on there simply because of all the people.

As you say, NYC (like Silicon Valley) has always been more concentrated in terms of technology focus.

Silicon Valley has a high degree of tech but also a fair bit of climate tech which shouldn't be discounted.

I think that there's a tendency on the part of a lot of people to view "tech" through the lens of web-related tech but obviously there's a lot more interesting/important work going on than just that--whether in the Boston area, Silicon Valley, or somewhere else.

Especially if you include Massachusetts as a whole it’s absurd:

MIT

Harvard

Tufts

Williams

Amherst

Brandeis

UMass Amherst

Boston University

Boston College

Northeastern

Wellesley

Olin

Babson

Smith

WPI

The valley has a vibe in that everyone you meet is involved in tech work in some way and will talk about it to you or in public. It doesn't feel that way here, or you have to be a part of certain circles maybe. There are some small biotech meetup groups, but maybe they all do communication at the universities?

Still true today: http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html

NYC is 50% higher in terms of total VC dollars.

It really comes down to fear of change I think. Humans are very adaptable, and the same one can thrive in car-centric suburbs as they would in shoulder-to-shoulder metropolises. Given no constraints, you prefer city. But throw in kids (requirement for more space/better schools), or a dream job (passion), or a dying parent (obligation), or a lover.. and suddenly you're building a life in a completely different place. And it works.

At least I think/hope.. because outside of a busy city I am irritable and sad. But it sure would be nice to slow down on the treadmill/rat race a bit..

I can say with certainty I will never live in one of these places. I won't even live in Pittsburgh, which is an order of magnitude smaller than any of these places. There's no escaping people. There's no escaping politics or bureaucracy. There's no way to escape petty crime, crazy people, and noise. You can't see the sky at night, there's never any "dark".

Everything is orders of magnitude more expensive in a city. $5000/month rent? And people think this is "reasonable"? I don't even pay a third of that on a mortgage on a 2400sq/ft house. With a nice yard, decent neighbors, a good school, low crime, low taxes, the works. Our night-time intruders are turkey, deer, the occasional black bear, raccoons, skunks, and screech owls.

Do I have to drive to get anywhere? Yes.

Do I get the highest-paying jobs? Do I have immediate access to cute little bodegas and trendy little shops and night life? No.

But I can let my kids go outside and play at night. I can leave my doors unlocked. Nobody breaks into my car and steals my stereo. I can leave my house with my garage door up and all my stuff inside, and my neighbors will call/text me to remind me.

Is this an adequate trade-off? For me, absolutely yes.

I get why people like living in big cities. I will never again live in one myself, though.

The timeless old attraction

Cruising for the action

Lit up like a firefly

Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for small desires

Or lose the race to rats

Get caught in ticking traps

And start to dream of somewhere

To relax their restless flight

Somewhere out of a memory

Of lighted streets on quiet nights

The caravan thunders onward

Toward the distant dream of the city

The caravan carries me onward

On my way at last, on my way at last

But perhaps it's your stage of life & social context that makes the difference (it does for me). If you were single, didn't have many friends/family (or they were all in the city), or were dedicated to a career/passion whose nexus is in a city.. suddenly you might be running towards those people and institutions ;)

It's not all about the cute bodegas. The sheer number of single women in my demographic nearby is worth inflated rent for the next few years. $5k for a single person is some maxima, I'm living alone in a big apartment in a nice/safe neighborhood for $3k, 2 blocks from the train. The salary possibility in NYC easily covers the delta to smaller cities/towns.

That’s definitely not a given. I know a bunch of people that given no constraints they would live at the edge of a lake with the nearest city being 100+ miles away. But they get forced into a city by the need for a job, or the same constraints you laid out.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think NYC has that Toronto or Seattle don't have? And what are you thoughts on Toronto vs. Seattle? Personally, I've lived in Toronto (which I loved), and visited Seattle for a few days (which I liked, but hard to say from a short visit), so curious to hear what others who have lived in all 3 think (especially since I'm planning to move to Seattle soon).

Seattle has enough good food to keep me relatively happy (even pizza and bagels), but for any given cuisine, you might have one or two good options. Getting to them probably involves driving, and they're probably not open late or even open at all early in the week (maybe this is a pandemic artifact; I moved here in 2021). Seafood here is great, though. I think Seattle wins in that single category.

I think NYC's biggest win over Seattle (and every single other city in the US) is the combination of quantity, quality, and accessibility. You have some of the world's best food, shopping, culture, and jobs accessible to you at all hours of the day via a subway ride (or in many cases within walking distance). The city is your backyard: you don't need a huge apartment because there's a good chance you won't really be spending much time there.

That said, after 10 years there I grew tired of that lifestyle and wanted to spend more time outdoors and exploring the west coast. If you really enjoy the outdoors—hiking, skiing, mountain biking, climbing, etc.—then NYC is vastly inferior to Seattle. I may find myself back in NYC some day because I miss the things that it's the best at, but for now, I'm enjoying doing something different. I think it's very easy to fall into a hedonic routine in NYC.

No, it's a Seattle thing. One of my major peeves with this city (and entire region) is how hard it is to find places that close later than 9pm, even in the summer when the days are really long.

I think the outdoors culture here is so strong that people don't really care about having things to do late at night in the city.

Atlanta is the same way and we used to have a HOPPIN' late night scene with SO many good late night spots, now it's almost a struggle to get something even like fast food after 9/10pm. That may be slowly coming back though it seems like.

This said, I think LA wins over NYC in the food department outside of the very high end michilin type stuff and certain specific kinds of ethnic food like italian.

Don't live in Seattle, but my friends who do live there joke that someday the people moving there from NYC and complaining about the city they just moved to will figure out that the airlines fly routes in both directions.

Seattle looooves to pat itself on the back for being pedestrian/bike/commuter-friendly … but it has a VERY low standard for "friendly."

Toronto: It's Canada. Culture is different than the US. My friends and family are here. Since it's where I formed my personality, I like the people here way more. It's the only place I experience uncontrollable laughter in reaction to what someone said. The inner city is very cool without feeling like some over-discovered instagram location. In NYC every half decent bar or restaurant is packed with a lineup and costs 2x. Transit is okay, not great. But I hate Canadian suburbs, so to me the GTA is not hospitable (for me) outside of the rectangle of Humber river to Don Valley, waterfront to Eglinton. And income to cost of living ratio is so much lower compared to tech in the US, it's like.. minimum 10+ years of working life lower.

Seattle: A true gem of a place. Not overcrowded (yet, despite what people there say). Great music, bars, restaurants etc. You can get from middle of "city" to middle of wilderness in 1.5-2h, and be literally in a national geographic photo. Insane income:cost of living ratio (only slightly lower income than Bay/NYC, but cost of living significantly less). Transit okay, getting better, but not too useful inside the city. But it's a very monocultural place. So unless you find your "people" here, it can be quite boring/exclusive. I fraternized widely, but ultimately was left wanting for more socially. Also far-left politics are central to social culture here, so it's quite literally not a "safe space" to be anything but. I'm more of an "east-cost person", if that makes any sense.

NYC: One of a kind place in North America. Feels like you truly live _in_ the city, not just in your house/apartment with necessary excursions. It can be overwhelming with how many people there are and how densely they live, but to me that's something special. Cost of living is insane, but it doesn't buy you nothing. Subway system can feel archaic and let's you down often, but it also enables a special way of life for North America (car-less existence, a fixed 30 or 50 min ride from almost anywhere you'd need to go). A lot of double edged swords. The diversity of people is eye-opening. Toronto can feel more ethnically diverse - which is interesting in it's own way - but NYC is diverse in every other way too. I'm quite worried about having kids in NYC someday. From what I hear the school system is ruthless. I don't want my kids to undergo such stress. I think Toronto wins out huge for raising children.

Anyway.. bit of a ramble.

You will be. And that's OK. It's a good thing: nothing else can compete with New York, so you're relieved of the pressure of equalling/one-upping it.

What do you do when you've summited the highest mountain? You take up scuba diving.

The way I would put it is -- in New York, it is more of a hassle to have a car than to go without. In all those other cities, while there is some mass transit, you will find yourself wanting a car.

Parking is such a dice roll in DC that using a car for intra-city travel is not efficient.

Lots of DC residents don’t have cars; most housing doesn’t include parking.

NYC has the largest train system in the entire world, especially when you combine the various nearby train systems that aren't a part of the main subway like LIRR, NJ transit, path and Metro north (in China which technically is longer they count long distance commuter rail). The subway alone has more stops than any train system in the world.

Try some European city with reasonable rents like Warsaw. Even the skyscrapers will remind you of Manhattan.

But yeah, learning Polish is not easy.

Much smaller then NY, much more homogeneous, not a major world center of arts or finance.

There are very few cities in the world that check all the boxes he listed for NY, and they're all extremely expensive as well.

Building new mass transport systems like light rail in existing cities from scratch requires a lot of political momentum, basically willingness to crush the pervasive NIMBY mentality and overcome the pull of bureaucratic inertia. Even in European cities that never dismantled their light rail systems, inhabitants often fight back against line extensions, citing noise concerns etc., and are able to delay the construction for years or decades.

Plus such systems aren't cheap and usually require new subsidies on top of existing subsidies. You will still have to maintain the existing road system and bridges, their usage won't drop to zero or even a quarter of current traffic. Some people won't voluntarily switch to public transit ever, for all kinds of reasons.

Maybe this isn't "fundamental", but IMHO the hurdles to overcome are really high and I am not sure if there is any city in the US willing to try this and having the means to do so.

There are plenty of walkable parts of NYC like the South Bronx that have far lower demand to live there than the suburbs in nearby NJ or hell the not so walkable parts of NYC like Staten island, south Bronx or the outer parts of Queens.

What people want is access to amenities in under 10 minutes of travel time, and under 20 minutes of travel to special events they don't go to regularly, as well as a short job commute. This can easily be solved by getting rid of euclidean zoning in suburbs and building out all American suburbs in the style of cities like Portland originally had been.

The apartment I grew up in, in lower manhattan, today would cost more than 20-30 times what my parents paid for it in the 90s, and it wasn't a nice apartment. There was no laundry in the unit, it faced a dark courtyard, the tempurature of the apartment was never that comfortable, had yearly huge bug infestations, but it was in a great location and was about 5 rooms more or less.

I think people just romanticize a life different than the one they grew up with. I certainly miss some aspects of the city culturally, but life on the west coast, I've had considerably better living arrangements ever since I've graduated college than the one I grew up in, and my parents were both professionals with graduate degrees, it's even worse for a lot of other people.

Unfortunately this is pretty unlikely unless there happens to be another political genius like Moses who also happens to love public transportation. Maybe an Andy Byford-Robert Moses combo?

Then make all public transit free and turn half of the roads into bus, pedestrian and bike only paths.

Is there any data to back this up? The latest NYPD crime statistics, show a city with increasing crime.

"Overall index crime in New York City increased by 27.8% in May 2022 compared with May 2021 (10,414 v. 8,149). Each of the seven major index crime categories saw increases, driven by a 42.1% increase in grand larceny (4,116 v. 2,897); a 28.3% rise in burglary (1,239 v. 966); and a 26.2% increase in robbery (1,506 v. 1,193)." See:

[1] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00050/nypd-citywide-cri...

Certainly no NYC, but they ticked all my recreation, arts, food, people and transport boxes.

Unfortunately, they’re all so goddamn expensive to live in.

I could also take issue with comparing Sydney to NY, but I’ll let that one go ;)

I think these are just human things done since... before civilization?

Yes, those things are definitely recent "hip" phenomena, not found over the entire millennia of history

That said, there is live music and public art too, just since it isn't Singapore's culture but an import from the west, there's less of it (see my rant on western food).

EDIT removed "white" qualifier for tourist, my brain still thinks in US but really all tourists from wherever go to the malls and idk promenade but miss the kopitiams and markets because it's just not in the touristy areas.

All that said, I like spending a few days there - again, the food! - but I’d rather be in Bangkok or KL for longer, e.g.

The staples (Chinese, Indian, Malay) are good and probably better, but western food is not great. A few are mediocre and some are great, but the great places lack variety and selection, that is you usually get only one good thing from a given stall or restaurant.

My girlfriend, the first time she went to the US was blown away by the food. She even swooned over freaking gas station pizza I picked up once. Now that I live in sg I understand what she meant by the food in the US having flavor, the staples are great but the western food is pretty mediocre and just is either off or just lacks the proper seasoning, or if it's good, it's easily twice the price (after conversion!) of similar quality food I ate in Ohio.

I seriously miss creole / cajun food for example, but the SG experience of the west is freaking British food which is the bottom of the barrel (fish and chips anyone?) seriously.

Another thing (sorry for the rant but it's fresh in my mind). Good luck getting any amount of vegetables in your meal.

SG has a few decent options once you get over the fact that you’re paying four times the price for a slice of pizza (or, god forbid, cote de boeuf). Ironically the best Cantonese food (IMHO) is in the American club.

this is true in sydney everywhere. May be except thursday nights, some shops open late.

My partner and I are looking at Madrid. But yeah, there is no other city in the world that's going to be like NY. Maybe London but of course that has the same problems.

* not specifically talking about London, either.

I will say, depending on how close you are to a train station, Brooklyn isn’t bad. Yeah, it’s 45 minutes door to door, but you get to walk and listen to podcasts or whatever on the train. As commutes go, it’s definitely doable. But I totally agree with you that many people don’t want to live anywhere else and people who don’t love New York might not understand that, but New York is different from every other major city in the US.

I’m still carless in Seattle (I don’t drive and have no desire to drive) but it’s so much harder (my husband does have a car but I can’t rely on that for my own needs). And although Seattle is somewhat cheaper than Brooklyn (it’s really not but my luxury building in Capitol Hill definitely costs less than a luxury building in Williamsburg foot for foot — I pay about 70% more in Seattle than I did in Brooklyn, however), the things I’ve lost compared to New York are massive. I’ve definitely considered moving back now that I’m at a fully-remote company (that does have office space in NYC), but there are some practical realities about being in Seattle for my job that makes that hard. Maybe when my lease is up next year, I’ll reassess.

http://whovotesformayor.org/

There are exceptions for rent controlled and rent stabilized apartments, where the landlords have even less power on price setting.

Obviously this is all just my opinion! I know tons of people love it there.

My parents also used to go there a lot in the 90s and the city has come a long long way since then- for the better.

Things are getting more expensive, for some people that means they can't eat steak as much as they like, for others it means they need to move in with their parents, for you it means you might not live in the heart of one of the most expensive and desirable cities in the world.

I've always found it a bit odd that in the tech community there is this assumption that people have the right to live wherever they want, and that somehow living in NYC or SF during it's prime isn't its own variety of luxury good. I enjoy champaign when I'm in Paris, and am glad that at least for today I can drive a Porsche. I've spent plenty of years in a beat-up old Ford and drinking yuengling, won't be terribly surprised if I spent plenty more doing the same in the future.

I know that in MANY countries, one is precluded from owning any property if not a citizen. Obviously this leads to a bunch of corruption issues with bribing and marrying nationals for access to property, but the USA has literally zero control on property ownership.

You know how much foreign money laundering is done through US property ownership?

MOST of it.

A vertical zoning law might be an option:

There are places like Singapore where you cant build a high-rise unless the subterranian aspects of the project dont include a connection to other sub services, like the walkway malls and such.

I say do a % split on a vertical level which must include subterranian levels as a course:

The building MUST include underground parking, a commerical section and a range of income level sections.

You cant just build a high-rise of $millions apartments.

Look at Millennial Tower in SF. What a disaster. I HUGE legal BS and not a single person with a net worth of south of 10 million was accommodated in that disaster - but it still cost the city (i.e. tax payers who are NOT worth >10 million -- millions of dollars.

this is a different metric than:

What % of luxury "apartments" are uninhabited in extremely high cost situations where an average person isnt renting the "apartment" - but laundering money by owning such place and paying a tax placeholder fee...

And in addition CHURN

What % of apartments are experiencing churn and whilst during so, what is the rent increase on each new wave of tenants...

This would be a really intresting tower defence game.

You are the landlord/super/scumlease

You have apartments that will constantly dwindle in desireability

so you have upkeep.

You can accept the upkeep cost, or, for a lesser price, evict the current tenant and accept a new tenant at a fraction of the upkeep cost to keep revenues going into the future with % rates you like that keep you slum lord-ship going... or you kill them all, demolish and build a new building gentrify the neighborhood and blame it on rats, older policies etc...

We need a TRUMP LORD 2000 NYC SIM module.

Instead of installing new sewar, water, fire PREVENTION systems

You are needed to install new RAT, SUPER, COP-INTERFERENCE-BRIBERY schemes to keep your shit going...

Like the trump Water Heater Scandal. (this buildingz gunnaz needz a newz water heatahz...

My cousin tony iz dah only guyz who gunna do dis

Pay mah kidz what dez needz be paid, and you can stay)

---

THIS IS AN ACTUAL THING THAT HAPPENED IN NYC

Isn't most of that true for most large cities anywhere in the world?

Consider Amsterdam.

- Mass transit? Yes.

- Not owning a car? Sure.

- Safer than America.

- Tech hub, yes.

- Finance hub? uhh, does it really matter?

- Everybody gets along, across many cultures.

- Food? Depends on your taste, but all kinds of cuisine are available.

Or consider Singapore/London/Gothenburg/Paris/Toronto/so-many-others. Similar deal. Sometimes even a better deal, depending on your priorities.

Of course, I fully agree that NYC is a cool place :)

It's nice you enjoyed your ride from $2,000/month to $5,000/month. That range was absurd to the people that went through an earlier range, and so on and so forth.

I'm sorry, but... you might be able to get to FiDi from downtown BK in 20 minutes, door to door. If you live anywhere else in BK, from Greenpoint to Sheepshead Bay, you're looking at 30 minutes minimum to get into manhattan -- probably closer to an hour door-to-door.

Not trying to be rude here, but your statement does not seem to match my lived experience. Maybe you can get 20 minutes door-to-door on a citibike?

Even areas further away, like Prospect Heights or Crown Heights, with decent access to transportation have seen quite the uptick in price and availability.

For example, I live in a nice town in CT and the crime rate is 3.99 per 1000 vs NYC which is currently about 13.3 per 1000, making NYC (as a whole — I understand your point about neighborhoods within the city) 3x higher in crime.

I understand the other things you appreciate about the city. It's great to able to walk outside and have amazing restaurants and other amenities a few feet away; there's a reason many people like the city.

Overall NYC is much safer than the national average, especially compared to small towns which people often assume are the safest. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/new-york-city-is-a-l...

If I'm being honest with myself, muggings in DC still scare me more than car crashes in Montana, despite the reality of these stats.

Crime here is comparatively high, and many people still drive.

When I lived in DC I was several times narrowly missed by people blowing red lights, robbed, and once had to wake a driver up at a red light because they and a passenger had both passed out while driving at 11am. It definitely didn't feel like a particularly safe place.

I'm not that worried about being murdered. Murders tend to happen between people with a relationship. There are very few random murders. In cities, gangs do the murdering, and outside of cities, it is generally crimes of passion. The NYPD is very, very aggressive about going after gangs and murders. This is at the cost of controlling other types of crime.

The car crashes are easy to explain: NYC is designed so that you drive very slowly, and there is a 25 mph speed limit everywhere a pedestrian might be. Crashes in NYC are almost always non-fatal. It's not that they don't happen. They are just non-fatal.

Personally, I am worried about being mugged or harassed, and that is extremely common in NYC compared to most places. It also happens to be something that happens between unrelated people. That is why I moved out of NYC after having been attacked once and witnessing 2 thefts in 4 years, and that is why the statistics cited in that op-ed are completely useless.

This piece you are citing is from the Opinion section of Bloomberg News. Bloomberg itself being a company whose headquarters are in NYC and whose founder is Mike Bloomberg a NYC resident himself as well as being a 3 term mayor of NYC. The author of this opinion piece, Justin Fox is also a NYC resident. It's worth noting too that Bloomberg LP company famously does not allow remote work and owns the Bloomberg Tower, a 55 story commercial and residential skyscraper that takes up an entire city block in Midtown.

Lastly Bloomberg himself is a polarizing figure since during his long tenure as Mayor he was widely seen as being in bed with big real estate development. His tenure as mayor was notable for the hyper development of luxury real estate. The types of "glass boxes" that are dark most of the year. For more background see:

https://therealdeal.com/2019/11/26/love-hate-and-real-estate...

That plus making it easier/safer to get around by bike/scooter/etc. That’s something even NYC doesn’t seem to do well; have to look at international peers to see good examples of that.

The main point I want to make: even with those high rents, we tend to forget how much our cars cost us, directly and indirectly.

Directly: AAA's average new car TCO is close to $10,000 a year. Multiply by two for a typical couple and that's $1600 a month you could dump into your NYC apartment's high rent. Unlimited MTA rides only cost $1500/year/person.

Indirectly: There's the obvious car crash issue, the top killer of children (well, guns just passed that, but luckily NYC is safer than the average American city in that regard), but the other main example is health. We're not supposed to sit all day. My doctor moved from a car suburb to the city and admitted they lost weight and walk a lot more. When walking is the easier option compared to attempting to drive to your daily errands, it's much better for you and extends your life, especially when considering your high-quality years of life.

Number one premature killer is heart disease, by far.

Even if you're just walking to the subway, that's a lot more activity than your commute to your garage.

NYC's obesity rate is half of the national rate. HALF! That's downright incredible.

In NYC I see very old people walking everywhere, stereotypically playing chess in the park, meanwhile I have suburban relatives struggling to walk across the Walmart parking lot and they haven't even hit 70 years old. They may live into their 80's but it will not be pleasant for them. The difference in alertness is noticeable. As a bonus, old people in NYC never had to drive so they never have a retired life feeling isolated to their home.

I think the best way to try and stabilize rent is to buy a condo. It's not a silver bullet due to property taxes and HOA fees that rise with inflation, but it's still a slower rise than renting, I think. You can definitely find 2 bedroom condos with monthly payments under $5000 in Manhattan.

If you're interested in what NYC apartments are really like and how far your money gets you (along with some general YouTube vlogging entertainment), a channel I recommend is Cash Jordan. I won't link it but I'm sure you can find it. Like any other real estate market, it's all about compromises. If you want to live in NYC and pay $1000/month/person, you can definitely do it. You can also pay $10,000/month if you want.

The big caveat to everything I'm saying is that the poor are unlikely to live in the most walkable areas, and a lot of them will perhaps have to own a car. This is definitely the case in Chicago, where the most walkable areas are also the most desirable and affluent (I wonder why that is? Maybe our whole country would be more desirable and affluent if it wasn't designed to be a cash funnel where we dump our income into constructing vehicles, maintaining the infrastructure and utilities utilities of nearly unused land, and burning oil?)

First, you can get by just fine without a new car. My car was $26k new - 18 years ago. I’ve put another $10k over the years in maintenance (tires, oil, repairs). Insurance is $500/year. Gas is maybe $2k/year at $4/gal. Not even close to $10k/year.

That caveat you apply to averages for rent also applies to cars. Some people are obsessed with having a new car. That’s not the price of having a reliable car.

Second, if you’re a couple, you don’t need two cars. That’s another luxury that many people get by without.

Finally, the car takes me out of town monthly into the mountains. So you would need to factor in car rentals for leaving NYC in your equation if you wanted a fair comparison of what people actually get out of their cars.

> NYC's obesity rate is half of the national rate. HALF! That's downright incredible.

Cause or effect? A lot of people with mobility issues end up obese and having mobility issues is a fucking nightmare in NYC. You just forced the unhealthy people out of the city by design.

> As a bonus, old people in NYC never had to drive so they never have a retired life feeling isolated to their home.

+1. It’s a great place to live… if you don’t have health issues that make mobility a problem.

“Living on the top of Mt. Everest is so healthy! Look at all of the healthy people up here!”

Insurance $500 a year as you stated, and then you've got a typical driver driving somewhere around 15,000 miles a year if not more. [2] If you've got a 30MPG car [2.1] at $4.50 a gallon [2.2], you're paying $2,250 just to fuel it, before any expenses for maintenance, oil changes, tires, etc. If you've got a car payment like 35% of Americans, the average payment for a used car is around $500 [2.3], but since we're dealing with averages and vehicles whose lifespans exceed their loans, maybe we can just go ahead and cut that in half to $250/month.

Don't forget that the poorest Americans get the worst auto loan rates, so their payment may be pretty high for a car that has already depreciated significantly. They're losing money to interest that isn't even technically being put into the vehicle itself.

So our grand TCO for this hypothetical car is $5,750, which is really close to the averages that you see in my first reference. [1]

I think this is a really, really reasonable ballpark estimate.

How are you supposed to own only one car if you are a dual-income household in the suburbs and work two different jobs at different locations? Owning one car per person is not a "luxury" in this country, it is just about the norm (1.88 cars per person in the USA). [3]

If it was a "luxury," the entire freaking country wouldn't be doing it.

You really think NYC has a lower obesity rate as an effect rather than a cause, as in, all the people with obesity just say "well, I guess I can't live here anymore, I'll go move to the suburbs?" Do you have any information to back up that type of thinking?

New York (due to NYC) is the most physically active state according to FitBit, and you're gonna jump on here and claim that this completely disconnected obesity rates? [4]

It's not hard to figure out that higher levels activity help prevent obesity. Calories in calories out, walking and walking up and down stairs burns more calories than sitting. [4.1]

The 65+ commuters in NYC are actually the most active commuting segment of the population and over half walk 10 blocks or more per day. [5] I have a hunch they might still be alive and productive because they're so active!

NYC's subway system will be 95% accessible by 2055, [6] which is really quite soon on the scale of city planning and development. About 25% of stations are currently accessible, and really a subway system 25% the size of NYC's system is still a vast transit network. This also doesn't include New York's vast bus system, which is essentially 100% accessible. Tell me, how do you expect the vision impaired to get around in areas that require cars?

When it comes to your point about getting out to the mountains, it's important to note that NYC has plenty of transit-accessible outdoor spaces, including perhaps the best city park in the entire world, Central Park. NYC is extremely well-connected to regional rail and other methods of transit to all sorts of destinations, including outdoor spaces. [6.1] And, yes, New Yorkers can rent a car once in a while, it's a lot cheaper than owning one! They can even stop paying for their MTA fares while they're out of town, while car owners continue to pay for insurance even if they're spending time away from home. A lot of those car owners are even paying daily to park their car at the airport!

Last point: How hard is it really to live in a small apartment, when most people are drowning in clutter and wasteful purchases? [7] How much space in your house is dedicated to storing your vehicle? How much space in your home is dedicated to storing things you rarely or never use? Holiday decorations?

[1] https://www.move.org/average-cost-owning-a-car/

[2] https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/average-miles-dri...

[2.1] https://www.bts.gov/content/average-fuel-efficiency-us-light...

I'm also being generous, the national average is 25MPG not 30MPG.

[2.2] https://gasprices.aaa.com/

[2.3] https://www.finder.com/car-loan-statistics

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/551403/number-of-vehicle...

[4] https://www.ibtimes.com/do-new-yorkers-walk-10000-steps-day-...

[4.1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesi...

[5] https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/survey/survey-...

[6] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/22/nyregion/nyc-subway-acces...

[6.1] https://www.outdoors.org/resources/amc-outdoors/adventures/8...

[7] https://www.thesimplicityhabit.com/statistics-on-clutter-tha...

Ask yourself why only 35% have payments. Also, half is pretty pessimistic since a car loan on the long end is 6 years.

> How are you supposed to own only one car if you are a dual-income household in the suburbs and work two different jobs at different locations? Owning one car per person is not a "luxury" in this country, it is just about the norm (1.88 cars per person in the USA). [3]

One person drops the other off. This isn’t a difficult problem and it’s how my parents did it for nearly 15 years way back in the 70s and 80s. Clearly car ownership is a foreign concept to you, but at least try to steelman it to get a decent argument.

> You really think NYC has a lower obesity rate as an effect rather than a cause, as in, all the people with obesity just say "well, I guess I can't live here anymore, I'll go move to the suburbs?" Do you have any information to back up that type of thinking?

Are you seriously asking for proof that obese and disabled people aren’t the biggest fans of having to walk everywhere?

>New York (due to NYC) is the most physically active state according to FitBit, and you're gonna jump on here and claim that this completely disconnected obesity rates

You’re getting confused again and assuming that the city is causing activity rather than just forcing the inactive people out by being an unfriendly environment to them.

> The 65+ commuters in NYC are actually the most active commuting segment of the population and over half walk 10 blocks or more per day. [5] I have a hunch they might still be alive and productive because they're so active!

The segment of the population who does X tends to do X! News at 10! This doesn’t say anything about the community that can’t walk.

> NYC's subway system will be 95% accessible by 2055, [6] which is really quite soon on the scale of city planning and development. About 25% of stations are currently accessible, and really a subway system 25% the size of NYC's system is still a vast transit network. This also doesn't include New York's vast bus system, which is essentially 100% accessible.

“Accessible” doesn’t mean convenient. The elevators are fucking shit in the stations that are accessible and getting to/from the stations is still shit. I took a wheelchair bound aunt to a play on broadway maybe 10 years ago, and it was awful even with me pushing her. Accessibility isn’t a checkbox.

>Tell me, how do you expect the vision impaired to get around in areas that require cars?

Non sequitur, I’m not talking about blind people. I’m talking about mobility impaired people.

> including perhaps the best city park in the entire world, Central Park

It’s an amazing park, but it’s just a park. The comparison to wilderness is laughable.

> Last point: How hard is it really to live in a small apartment

Depends on if you treat your apartment as a box to shit in and sleep in between spending all of your time elsewhere or as a place to actually live and spend huge parts of the daytime. There is a reason NYC was one of the worst places to be quarantined.

> I'm also being generous, the national average is 25MPG not 30MPG.

No you’re not, you quoted $4.50/gal for gas when that hasn’t been an average people have paid until the Ukrainian invasion.

It is true that older people in NYC are seemingly healthy, but they're definitely a very specific type of person.

Live in SF or LA and you’ll face similar costs and still need a car on top of it.

They may not realize the game they're in. But as long as the cost of living keeps hitting new peaks, inevitably people need to bring in more money, or move farther out or elsewhere. Supply is limited, and it is a competition.

And the award for Most Condescending Comment goes to...

But in all seriousness, this has always been happening. NYC is NYC because the cost of living keeps hitting new peaks, over and over, generation after generation. The same with so many high-demand cities. That's how they got to be such massive, dense cities to begin with. We're all just riding the wave.

I probably could have phrased that better. In any case I don't think what we're saying is incompatible. One has no choice but to keep up with the cost of living. My point is that the cost of living in a massively "central" city is defined by a lot of people driven to succeed and be seen succeeding, whether or not that's the mentality of one's group of friends.