> Check out the size of the dogs being walked near Central Park. Where do these people live?!
True, it's NYC is an expensive place to try and mix in all of the creature comforts of suburban life. The big dog, the fancy car, lots of square footage of living space. And to young kids, just out of college, who've never known anything other than suburban living before moving to NYC, these may seem like "baseline necessities" that you have to sacrifice in order to live here.
Once you accept that the baselines of city living are different from the baselines of suburban life, things get a lot simpler (and cheaper).
If there are developers unable to "enjoy" living in NYC at a $125-$140k base salary, then that's on them. Plenty of single people love life here on salaries of $45-60k, and are even able to save money.
> Finance has distorted the baseline of what it means to be successful in NYC.
This is obviously only if you try to keep up with them and the other Joneses. There are too many people here. Nobody notices if you don't have a dog, or a car, or a big apartment.
I own a place in a nice neighborhood in Brooklyn, don't want for much, and provide for my family all on a way less than Google/Finance salary. I think that's a perfectly fine definition of success.
>> "Plenty of single people love life here on salaries of $45-60k, and are even able to save money."
Here's some anecdata: I lived like a king on my $30,000 grad student stipend for years in Manhattan. And maxed out my IRA every year at the same time. The trick is just to get an apartment somewhere uncool, then you're rich.
Yup, Hamilton Heights in fact. Price per square foot as a function of latitude is a pretty flat curve for a long distance north of 125th, so there's no reason to go into the extra deep boonies to save money. I was on 139th on the West side.
I took his point to be the opposite--that in expensive cities in general, the typical 'burbian metrics of success (big house, big dog, big car) are unattainable, but at least in NYC there is a lot of other things you can enjoy, much more so than in SJ.
True, it's NYC is an expensive place to try and mix in all of the creature comforts of suburban life. The big dog, the fancy car, lots of square footage of living space. And to young kids, just out of college, who've never known anything other than suburban living before moving to NYC, these may seem like "baseline necessities" that you have to sacrifice in order to live here.
Once you accept that the baselines of city living are different from the baselines of suburban life, things get a lot simpler (and cheaper).
If there are developers unable to "enjoy" living in NYC at a $125-$140k base salary, then that's on them. Plenty of single people love life here on salaries of $45-60k, and are even able to save money.
> Finance has distorted the baseline of what it means to be successful in NYC.
This is obviously only if you try to keep up with them and the other Joneses. There are too many people here. Nobody notices if you don't have a dog, or a car, or a big apartment.
I own a place in a nice neighborhood in Brooklyn, don't want for much, and provide for my family all on a way less than Google/Finance salary. I think that's a perfectly fine definition of success.