
Young New Yorkers Make a Brand New Start of It, on the Cheap - danw
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/nyregion/25scrimp.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
======
osipov
To rephrase Freakonomics, "what do drug dealers, high school football players,
and young New Yorkers have in common?"
<http://freakonomicsbook.com/thebook/ch3.html>

~~~
ardit33
could you add "employeers on a startup" in that list? What's the ratio of
people that made good fortune (500k+) on a startup, with those that just got
scraps, and an ok paycheck, for a lot of work, or nothing at all.

~~~
helveticaman
In the 90s, I heard it was 4.7% of computer (I guess that's software) startups
made the fortune 500.

The odds of a startup taking off are about one in three or four, which isn't
all that bad.

------
iamelgringo
I did more or less the same thing in Chicago in the 90's. It's a miserable
existence, but you feel so hip, cool and victorious knowing that you've
escaped the burbs. A lot of the buzz in Silicon Valley about living in San
Fran reminds me of that, too.

Isn't that what your 20's are for, though? Trying new things, being able to
risk a bunch and learning that perhaps there are other things that are more
important than being hip and trendy? And, you gain a lot of experiences and
lessons learned, so even though you're malnourished, it's not all bad.

------
somabc
You know, you could just rewrite this article and the replace the words "New
York" with "London", and "Oklahoma" with "Scotland"!

------
viergroupie
>Adam Leibsohn, a 27-year-old communications strategist who makes roughly
$60,000 a year and pays $1,650 a month for his own apartment in the East
Village...“It’s kind of a spartan lifestyle,” he says.

We admire your frugality.

------
edw519
“You’ve got to forget about brands, you’ve got to forget about, you know, what
your mom made you growing up, and take what’s out there.”

So?

Isn't this what people always had to do to get by?

But now it's so unusual it merits a NYT feature story?

Cry me a river.

~~~
kungfooey
Seriously! That's exactly what I thought. I'm a (married) consultant living in
Queens. I work at businesses all over Manhattan and I find that I'm the only
guy bagging my own lunch (seriously - never seen anybody else do it in the two
years I've been doing this here). I'm from the south, so I find the NYC idea
of "budgeting" to be absolutely laughable.

------
rokhayakebe
This is outrageous bordering idiotic. I still don't get why youngsters refuse
to be intelligent.

~~~
ardit33
it's called sex and the city. I am not exagerating, but there is a whole
generation of women that want to be in "the City", and living the fun/glam
life. Anything else is just too boring. Hence, there is much more women than
men in NYC. Well, the reality of living in the city, is completely different,
way too expensive, and too many sacrifices to be made.

But, when you are young (early 20s), you are used to live in dorms, sharing a
room with another person, etc... so you could put up with those conditions for
a while, until it wears you off, and you either get a good paying job, or move
out.

~~~
menloparkbum
There is probably a bit of the sex and the city effect, but this lifestyle has
been a part of new york since new york began.

