patrick.net

The variable quality of NYC buildings can make a huge difference in quality of life. People are stacked on top of each other, so if the floor/ceiling constructions have insufficient noise reduction, people end up hating each other. NY State requires all city building departments to promulgate noise reduction standards in new construction; NYC's building department answered with a standard of zero, i.e. no reduction. Developers win, residents lose.

Just take a real look at the dirty NY subways and streets. Absent the continuous PR, active and passive (Ole Blue Eyes songs, slutty girls of NY sitcoms) and you have an expensive and overcrowded shithole.

Yeah I disagree with Blurtman. I visited last summer and was enamored. I'd have no problem living there, no car and all.

Oh and for what's its worth, my hotel was in Hells Kitchen. I have no idea if that area is expensive or not. I'm assuming its pricey, but one of the lower cost areas as the buildings were old and looked meagar from the outside. I also liked the neighborhood around Katz's quite a bit as well. And the subway system was fantastic!

jojo says

@Blurtman

It's not for everyone and it may not be your style, but many people around the world and within the US do want to live in NYC.

Some folks feel the same about Newark, NJ. The Housewives of New Jersey pulls in decent ratings. That does not mean it is quality entertainment. NYC is a complicit collaborator in Wall Street criminal behavior. Sure the titans who have made money through fraud endow NYC with tokens of their crime, and scumbag politicians like ass licking Schumer will continue to thwart real reform. But as the city is in league with leeches and destroyers of peoples' lives, the city cannot help but reflect its parasitic host. It is a diseased and decaying shithole.

Nuke New York!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/i-crashed-a-wall-street-secret-society.html

Blurtman says

NYC is a complicit collaborator in Wall Street criminal behavior.

NYC is where "Occupy Wall Street" began. NYC elected Bill de Blasio Mayor. NYS Attorney General Eliot Spitzer made his name prosecuting Wall Street criminal behavior, and got elected Governor. (Unfortunately one of the criminal behaviors he prosecuted Wall Street for was prostitution, which later brought him down as well.) If you want to understand NYC's complicated relationship with Wall Street, start by considering SF's complicated relationship with the tech industry, and then compound the negative side with TBTF bailouts which never happened in the tech sector.

dodgerfanjohn says

I visited last summer and was enamored. I'd have no problem living there, no car and all.

And the subway system was fantastic!

I don't miss NYC, but I had a very hard time leaving it. You are a wise person to have lived in LA and perceive the true city that is NYC. LA is a loose collective of hovels and ivory towers, interconnected by traffic jams and assholes: not a city.

Many people will disagree about NYC being a great place to live, and it certainly has its share of the down-and-out, but it is a real city, and to be in its boundaries is to be a molecule in a great cellular thing that comprises culture, humanity, and dynamism. Waking up at 4:30 a.m. in Far Rockaway because you drank yourself stiff and somehow crawled on the L train at Union Square is one of life's petites joies.

No city is going to please everybody. I wish people would understand that.

jojo says

Yes, and it's a guess as to the noise level and neighbors are like when you take an apartment. Generally you have about 10 minutes to decide on the spot if you want the place or not. There is a fair amount of luck because of this (hopefully the neighbors don't play piano).

We got the mousy librarian chick and trollish motorcycle kid that made thundersome coitus noises all night, every night. It was a real libido killer.

jojo says

I like Spitzer a lot; I think he was singled out by powerful interests

Spitzer was the pits. All he did was play to the press. If he actually got as far as taking something to court (rarely) he totally dropped the ball. His record was terrible. He only was in it for publicity and as a stepping stone to higher office.

Ok but my logic is this.

NYC is The City

All these other "cities" try to ape New York.

And many of the people in these other cities, given a chance, would rather live in NY.

Well...this is their chance.

So, as NYC goes, so go all the other cities which are not real cities, just places that people who can't afford NYC go to to bid their time.

Meanwhile all these cities which aren't cities turn back into pumpkins (collections of suburbs with a small Old Town that used to be their City).

jojo says

(hopefully the neighbors don't play piano).

Or if they do, hope that they play really well and NOT past about midnight.

Philistine says

Many people will disagree about NYC being a great place to live

I can't fathom a scenario that would get me to live there. As saying goes, a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.

jojo says

many people around the world and within the US do want to live in NYC.

And MANY people wouldn't touch it with a 1,000 foot pole.

jojo says

Blurtman says

Nuke New York!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/i-crashed-a-wall-street-secret-society.html

Yeah! Nuke it! Because everyone in New York is part of that group.

Wedding party guests at a drone strike.

East Harlem? Crown Heights? Hope you like being home by 10pm or wearing a bullet-proof vest.

Harlem is a pussycat city compared to many small Midwestern towns.

Harlem didn't even make this list, but a city close to where I grew up in bumfuck nowhere South Carolina did.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/worst-neighborhoods-violent-crime-us/story?id=19087850