Quote:
Originally Posted by jws43yale
There is not a soul on 2p2 who could live in co-op city.
There are almost certainly Co-op City residents with a 2+2 account, but that's not the point. I mean, I'm sure that when you ride by on the train from Connecticut the complex looms like a Corbusian nightmare, but Co-op city is not a dilapidated housing project. It is a middle income development in a safe area full of working people. The apartments are spacious and well maintained and are of the same style as those East Side white brick buildings where 1BDs sell for over a million, and real estate agents advertise as "Mid-Century Modern" to the right kind of white people.
My point is that there is no waiting list for these places. I'm responding to ND who is arguing that you can't reasonably live in NYC for 65k/yr, and proving his point by cherry-picking rent in the most expensive areas and waving away other alternatives as "hellholes." But here is a well known development where they are basically giving away nice apartments, and any of the millions of middle income New Yorkers can live at cost, yet they can barely fill the place. That's because there are a million other options, often in more fashionable or convenient areas.
The truth is that NYC can be one of the best places to live on a middle class income. I know I certainly would rather live here on 65K then pretty much anywhere else in the US (including Austin). However, NYC is arguably the worst place to live on a high income. In pretty much any other metro area in the US, if you make 300k you will live like a king. In NYC you are still living in an apartment, sweating the rent, taking public transit, keeping up with the Joneses and constantly surrounded by people making much more money then you. Also, you have to contend with that retired teacher down the hall whose rent controlled apartment is larger then yours and only costs $700/month.