
The Price 20-Somethings Pay to Live in the City - fun2have
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/realestate/14cov.html
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tibbon
My summary and thoughts: Living in NYC is amazingly expensive. When you're
lower on the totem pole of the working world, your income doesn't reflect this
greater expense on a percentage basis. Sometimes its worth it in the long term
for additional opportunities and later career progress, but for millions it
likely turns out to be a net loss compared to living somewhere more
reasonable.

Its very possible to have an unpaid internship (whereas you might get paid
minimally for the same internship in other cities) that lasts for months ,
where the employer has no intention of providing the possibility of fulltime
employment at the end. This is exceedingly common in the recording industry.
Everyone wants an intern, but no one cares to pay the best ones a fulltime
wage afterward. Your living expenses may easily be 2-4x higher than where you
came from.

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ceejayoz
Unpaid internship in NYC = way to weed out qualified folks who don't come from
money already.

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rdtsc
So basically unpaid internship are just class filters ?

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ceejayoz
In a lot of industries, I believe that to deliberately be the case.

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mpk
> In a lot of industries, I believe that to deliberately be the case.

Maybe a simpler way of looking at this might be that given a large pool of
potential applicants the incentive to actually pay these people simply isn't
there if a large enough percentage of the pool doesn't require payment.

It's still the same brutally unfair result, but it doesn't require looking for
conspiracy.

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lkrubner
(responding to cletus about New Jersey)

There is a cluster effect to our social lives that is just as important as the
clustering effect that puts the epi-center of certain industries in particular
geographic spots (for instance, the movie industry is centered in LA, the
software startup industry is centered in the Valley, etc). To be specific: a
lot of the parties that I want to go to are in Brooklyn, but none of them are
in New Jersey. If I go to a party in Brooklyn, and then at 3 AM I am heading
home, then for me getting home is just a 15-20 minute taxi ride. Whereas if I
live in New Jersey, getting home from Brooklyn is at least an hour of trains
and buses and walking.

This point would be moot if there were an equal number of parties in New
Jersey that I wanted to go to (and therefore getting home to Brooklyn, from
New Jersey, would also be a big ordeal) but there are none. I've never been
invited to a party in New Jersey that I wanted to go to. Even when I lived in
New Jersey, all the social events that I wanted to go to were either in
Manhattan or Brooklyn. So, for me, it makes a lot more sense to live in
Brooklyn.

I could maybe see living in New Jersey if the rents were dramatically lower,
but they are not. I have a little studio apartment in Brooklyn that I pay
$1,100 a month for, and in New Jersey I might pay $900 for an apartment of the
same size. The extra $200 a month is just not worth it to me, not when the
real cost involves being an hour further away from the social life that I want
to have.

Not that I'm a 20-something, but I assume the logic is the same for them as it
is for me.

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jim_h
Living in NYC isn't too bad compared to other big cities, unless you only
think of NYC as Manhattan. The other boroughs offer cheaper (and safe) rent as
long as you are willing to search a bit.

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jgv
This is an important distinction. NYC != Manhattan. There are 4 other boroughs
to explore and in post-9/11 NYC I find the outer boroughs are simply more
interesting. Manhattan has become this caricature of its former self which I
frankly find to be boring.

Another note (somewhat unrelated to your comment). I am 23 so I consider most
of the cases to be my peers (although I have a job). I'm in a living situation
similar to the people featured in this article. I have three roommates and I
pay less than 600 for a large room in a large apartment in East Williamsburg.
The one thing is, I'm not complaining. I'm also not sure if a majority of the
people in this piece are. Living in Manhattan is just not a reasonable, or an
enjoyable, option IMO.

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weeksie
Seriously? I put up with this shit from 30-somethings all the time, the "Oh,
Manhattan is boring, oh the City isn't what it used to be, blah, blah, blah. .
. "

You're 23. In 2001 you were 14, you have no fucking idea what the scene was
like in Manhattan back then and in no way can compare it to what it's like
now. Waxing nostalgic about the 80s or early 90s? Sure, I can see that because
the city was a very different place (though not nearly as different as people
like to tell themselves it was). But take the faux "oh shit was good then it
got bad" routine and stuff it.

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jgv
I am simply pointing out that Manhattan is kind of boring, I don't really care
if it was boring or not in the early 80s either. New York has changed
drastically since I was a child and I can see that clearly. I was born at NYU
Medical Center and I've been in New York for my whole life, so I'd like to
think I can formulate an opinion about how the city has changed. I remember
squeegee men, how Giuliani seemingly eradicated homelessness in one fell
swoop, and New York before it's intense Disneyfication. My first home at
Stuyvensant Town was bought by MetLife and is now being marketed as luxury
condos. I have plenty to be nostalgic about. Lastly, I'm not certain what
"scene" you are referring to. This article is not about tech in NYC and I
never claimed to be commenting about tech. You should take your really
aggressive vibe "and stuff it".

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luckyland
Stuy Town wasn't bought by Metlife. They were the original developer and sold
it in 2006.

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rospaya
So I guess the rent is too damn high?

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iopuy
Was it just me or was the author's continual use of "Mr. Cavin Quezada"
incredibility annoying? Please switch it up some....Mr.
Quezada......Cavin...... anything would be better than repeating "Mr. Cavin
Quezada."

1) "Mr. Cavin Quezada, who works as an unpaid intern...."

2) "Before this I was living in a loft in Bushwick,” said Mr. Cavin
Quezada....

3) "Mr. Cavin Quezada often works until 2 a.m......"

4) "...I’ve given her enough details for her to worry,” Mr. Cavin Quezada
said.

5) Mr. Cavin Quezada’s situation mirrors the way....

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run4yourlives
Sorry, but I stopped reading at "his mom pays his rent".

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mtsmith85
I understand the downvotes -- after all that someone's parents pay for their
rents shouldn't necessarily disqualify that person's viewpoint, right?

But, after living here for almost a decade, after paying my way through NYU
($100k to go! Wheee!), after watching disgusting situations (like an 24 year
old account "executive's" mother call her boss to complain about the hours she
was working), I have to strain every muscle in my body not to immediately
disqualify kid's (because the good majority are just that, kids) who's parents
pay the rent.

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vaksel
those prices seem kinda low

my sister is moving to nyc at the end of the month, and all the places she
found were 2-3K/mo...she'll most likely go with this one place that's
$1,250/mo with a roommate for a 2bdr apartment.

Granted she is set on living in Manhattan(Midtown) near her job, so it's a lot
more expensive there.

But that's why her job pays her 15-20K more compared to what she'd get outside
the city

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starkness
There's a significant price differentiation between living in Manhattan and in
other boroughs. One really can't lump them all together.

I have friends that pay $6-700/mo for rooms in reasonable apartments in
convenient locations in Brooklyn (e.g. off the Lorimer L stop, less than 10
mins from Union Square). Rents have also significantly gone down in NYC in the
past two years. I had mine decreased by 12% last year and it hasn't gone up
since.

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gnosis
10 minutes to Lorimer? It's 20 minutes minimum just to Bedford. And that's
when the trains are running frequently and efficiently. There have been plenty
of times when the L train's taken over an hour to get just to Bedford.

And that doesn't include the walk from the station to your home, which could
easily be 10 or more minutes away from the L stop.

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cletus
What I'm curious about is why no mention is made of living across the Hudson
(ie New Jersey).

I know New Yorkers like to look down on NJ and I guess the Times is complicit
in that but the PATH trains make the commutes to Midtown and Downtown much
shorter than the outer boroughs.

Plus NJ has lower taxes. And no "Amazon tax" (at least not yet).

So perhaps this article should be titled "the price 20somethings pay not to
appear uncool", for which I have very litte sympathy.

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gnosis
Where in NJ?

Hoboken, Jersey City, Newark, and Newport are pretty crime-ridden.

What neighborhoods would you recommend that are within a 5 to 10 minute walk
from a PATH train stop, that are cheaper than Manhattan, and also safe?

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stewiecat
Hoboken is crime-ridden?? I spent 6 years there from 1996-2002 and have
friends that still live there and can say that crime is not an issue in almost
all of Hoboken. Sure, if you go to the projects on the back end of Hoboken
things get rougher, but I never, ever felt unsafe there.

Even JC has cleaned up a lot, especially the areas by the PATH trains like
Exchange place and Newport.

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bootload
_"... he pays $500 a month and has a 10-by-6-foot bedroom. But as for the
neighborhood, he is less enthusiastic. ..."_

Given the demand and patchy supply, is there any service that caters to this
market allowing renters to choose a place to match size, price & location?

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sedachv
"In Bushwick, I never really felt threatened. Now, the sounds around are more
aggressive. I’ll see 20 guys ride by on motorcycles"

The whole article is hilarious, but this is especially funny. Sometimes I see
20 people ride by in cars. Hide!

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gnosis
Cars don't tend to be nearly as loud.

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akgerber
I saw crews of idiots doing wheelies up and down the street when I lived in
Harlem on 146th St. and didn't feel particularly threatened.

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zavulon
> “We had a mouse,” she acknowledged. “But if you live on the Lower East Side,
> you’ll always have a mouse.”

I live on Lower East Side, and I've never had a mouse. Having a cat helps ;)

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shorttime
Obvious news is obvious. It's all economics.

