For non-NYC inhabitants only: Would you want to live in New York?

NYC isn’t really what it used to be, so no. It’s like LA, all of the culture and life that used to make it appealing is gone now, it’s hollow. And also just like LA, it’s also wildly expensive for anybody beyond the evil fucks gentrifying it, to the point where it’s impossible to live there on a normal person’s salary.

I lived in Manhattan through the 70s and early 80s.

If I had lots and lots of money, I'd move back tomorrow.

Yes, it was fun and creative 35 years ago, it was heaven for a young gay man but it was also horribly crime ridden. It was depressing in a lot of ways.

But today's NYC is still vibrant with lots happening there. It's a different city today, but it still has plenty to offer.

I live in Brooklyn, am I allowed to answer?

I’m curious about answers - as a NYer who would consider leaving but can’t figure out another decent place to live. I always appreciate the people in NYC when I come back after being away. Don’t care about the restaurants, the chic bars, the hip scenes. But love the energy, attitude and options. Hate the expense - but SF and LA are basically as bad now.

[quote] It’s like LA, all of the culture and life that used to make it appealing is gone now, it’s hollow.

LA once had culture???

[quote] I live in Brooklyn, am I allowed to answer?

Brooklyn is a borough of NYC, so I would ask that you do not.

People who live in Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten island are also asked please not to answer.

OP has stated her city limits! LOL

New York was wonderful, and enervating and full of oddity and excitement. Then it began to die, and now it's really on it's last legs. It's now like an exceptionally dirty outdoor mall, with a better concentration of restaurants and shows. However, there's little in NYC you can't find elsewhere in the world. The Met is the sole exception I'd make to that statement.

[quote]However, there's little in NYC you can't find elsewhere in the world.

So what city in the world do you think tops NYC?

[quote]However, there's little in NYC you can't find elsewhere in the world.

Except that's bullshit. You can't find genuinely good food everywhere, certainly not in most of this country. I have family in several places in the Midwest and quality food was hard to come by. They eat like shit in most of this country.

It is walkable, lots of different terrain in a small area, great career options ($$$PAY) in finance and tech industries, lots of cultural events and arts. It is also not too religious compared to big cities like Houston.

I’ve always said I would love to live in NYC for 1 year if I had enough money not to work. Try to do everything that I was interested in doing. It would mostly be cultural. Broadway, symphonies, museums etc. Then I would leave and not look back.

r12. Exactly!

r10, there are plenty of cities with good food, and in most of them it's much more affordable than in NYC.

In my 20s, yes. Now, not so much considering I am looking for less chaos and expense than my own city (LA, which is already expensive and chaotic enough). I would like to take more extended trips out there to discover some of the quieter pockets of the city.

I had lived in NYC for 24 years since 1990. The first 20 years I could not imagine living anywhere else. The remaining 4 years was spent on thinking OK, this is not the City I have fallen had fallen in love with. For the last 5 years I have been living in Florida, hating the people down here, but loving everything else .... the weather, the space and the accomodation. I go back to New York every year for a week and gladly come back to the deplorable Florida afterwards.

I turned down a couple opportunities to live there when that would have meant being hard pressed financially and career-focused. By the time I had money enough to live there the appeal had faded for me.

A long time NYer but I can see the attraction has faded. I think I’d be fine living somewhere else and visiting 3-4 times a year.

I managed nine months there in 1979 when I was in my 20's and loved every minute of it, especially the sex and the drugs and the nightlife, but know I'd have been dead a long time ago had I stayed.

I'm good for a long weekend to see the shows and exhibitions these days, but it's not the same place and I'm not the same person.

I have a fantasy of living there as an independently wealthy semi-recluse, like Garbo. Spending my mornings walking, my afternoons at the Morgan Library or watching art films at MoMA. But I think that's the only way I would enjoy it.

I live in Chicago. Just about everything I’d want from NYC, which isn’t much beyond liberalism, buildings, and jobs, are available in Chicago. I don’t hate suburbebs so the Chicagoland area offers the best of both worlds.

I like to visit NYC about every 3 years or so. It doesn’t feel like I’m missing much. The city is either brand new or worn down. The subway is slow and 3rd word looking. The city lacks adequate alleys so trash is on the street, neatly, but still there in many parts of th city.

Chicago is no oasis, but it has what I need. Ask, I can afford a nice sized apartment in a Chicago. The line between the haves and the have nots isn’t as in your face in a Chicago, at least for the middle class vs the upper class.

All I hear is New Yorkers themselves complaining about the cold winters, gentrification and inflation.

I wonder if the crime and poverty and physical filth gave the city its edge?