No, it's the price you pay for luxury. If you're not willing to pay that, then I'd be happy to help you find a lovely place in Dubuque.

Lots of fringe benefits living in NYC. For example, people everywhere will give you free advice about your hometown and how to live. Even if they've never been there. Hard to put a price on that kind of resource.

Right because finding a job and moving are easy. Living in NYC is desirable for a lot of reasons but saying it is a luxury is just astoundingly silly.

Plus "only" a few thousand to pack up and move to Iowa. No problem on that dishwasher's salary, I'm sure he's got at least a few $K in the bank.

Wookie making very pvn like libertard arguments in case anyone hasn't noticed.

This is exactly the sort of bloodless analysis that ACists and libertarians get excoriated for in this forum.

I understand the logical point that you are trying to make, but is the first gen Pakistani who lives in a Pakistani neighborhood in NYC really purchasing "luxury" in the same way that a rich guy is purchasing luxury when he buys a penthouse apartment with exclusive roof access? According to your analysis, the answer is yes, but in the real world, the answer is no.

Leaving behind friends and family (often wives and kids) to immigrate to a VERY different country is an alienating experience. Our Pakistani friend is not living in NYC for the "luxury" of having his "favorite" neighbors. Some amount of community support may be the bare minimum that he needs to start his life over in the US. Comparing a basic human desire for community with a desire for a beachfront property is ridiculous imo.

Exactly. I was in the process of typing the same thing.

This is incredibly tone-deaf - it's like saying that wheelchairs are luxury goods because they are expensive and normal people can do without them. Many of these immigrants are heavily dependent on their ethnic communities for survival because they don't know how to navigate the system by themselves, whether for jobs or rental apartments or otherwise. It's not easy to find a job or an apartment in Random Town, USA as a foreigner with a limited grasp of English, not much money and no credit. You're also far more likely to be taken advantage of when you lack a strong support system.

With that said, ethnic neighborhoods full of immigrants are generally inexpensive because white people avoid these neighborhoods. The general whining about NYC cost of living never seems to come from poor immigrants, but from whites (and non-immigrant Asians/etc) who find that affordable neighborhoods are full of minorities and immigrants; conversely neighborhoods with enough white people are prohibitively expensive. It's not the Pakistani dishwasher who pays a lot of money to live where he does - it's the Midwestern white transplant who pays a lot of money to avoid seeing Pakistani dishwashers. NYC is expensive to start with, but it appears even more expensive if you buy into the stereotype that "not enough white people" means bad neighborhood.

It's also a fundamental mis

This is all true. This "NYC is a luxury" nonsense is legitimately kind of offensive (although it's much worse when it comes from a guy who was mayor for 12 years). NYC is a primarily middle and working class city (with a substantial underclass), with working class sensibilities. Median household incomes are around 50k. It's just that people don't give a **** about most of those folks.

Some white 20-something making 60k could rent an Art Deco 3 bedroom apt. in Norwood for 1100 a month, or buy an apartment in Coop City for 20k if they wanted to, they just don't want to. Imagine that!

I agree completely, except that I would note that the Pakistani dishwasher pays a lot to live where he does -- not a lot compared to the most expensive neighborhoods in NYC but certainly a lot compared to people in other areas of the country.

I was out with a friend who rents a nice one-bedroom in Washington Heights. (For those who are not familiar with NYC, Washington Heights is far north -- about 6 miles away from midtown Manhattan and 8 miles away from downtown Manhattan. The neighborhood is maybe 15% white, 70% Hispanic, 15% other. It is relatively safe.) I am guessing that his apartment is around 700-800 square feet. His rent is $1600 per month. That's still a lot. I haven't rented in a while, but I am guessing that the same apartment in an expensive neighborhood in Manhattan would be in the range of $3500-$4000.

Space wise that's about right if you are looking for newer buildings (you can save quite a bit if you don't care about walkups and age and so on).

For 800 sqft 3500 a month, you should expect quite a few amenities. Gym (some with saunas) in building, access to conference rooms, doormen, laundry in building, niceties like that.

It's worse than I thought. I just checked the NYT rental section. 800 sq ft in a full service building is in the range of $4500-5000 in the west village and $4000-4500 in the East Village. Prices in walkups are maybe $500 per month cheaper. Jesus.

yeah, sounds about right. I was thinking more downtown around herald square and closer to Chinatown, edge of "nice" zone basically.

Poor people don't travel much, so they often aren't exposed to very much outside their home neighborhood. That and they are too busy just keeping their head above water to think to move to somewhere with more economic opportunity. My impression is that moving never really even occurs to them.

I moved from KC to SF with $500 to my name. But I knew I could borrow another $1k or two from my parents if I really needed to. Even that kind of money is an insurmountable obstacle for a lot of people.

Moving to an extremely high cost area with no money often requires that you have a place to crash for a couple of months while you get a job, etc.

When I first moved to NYC 20 years ago, the rental market was tight, and not just in Manhattan. SOP for landlords was to demand first (and sometimes last) month's rent, plus a security deposit. Some landlords required a co-signer. Even though it is against the law, many landlords refused to deal with renters unless they worked through a broker. Standard broker fee was 15% of annual rent for one year.

I paid $735 a month for my first apartment in Brooklyn. It was a complete dump. It had only one room, plus the bathroom. There was no tub or the shower in the bathroom, though there was a free standing tub in the main room (lol privacy). There was no kitchen, just a free standing oven/range. The heat went out in the winter for two months and my landlord told me to turn on my stove.

Even for that dump, twenty years ago, I had to make a $3K nut. In today's terms, that's a lot of upfront cash for someone who is indigent.

I think Wookie did himself no favours with the term "luxury" when "amenity" is a less loaded and more accurate term. Though if we're trying to rate who is "better off", the distinction is quite crucial. Some amenities give you things over and beyond the average person (such as beach access), they can be quite accurately termed as "luxuries". Some amenities allow you to get closer to parity from a position of disadvantage. I think the case of the Pakistani dishwasher in NYC is much closer to the latter. Being able to live in a community you don't feel completely out of place in is not a luxury for the vast majority of Americans, it's so standard that most people don't even think about it. It's not really fair to say that a NYC Pakistani dishwasher is a "higher class" than a white Iowa dishwasher because he makes $0.50 more per hour but gets the "luxury" of being able to live around people who's familiar with.

It's not even just about feeling completely out of place, it's about job security, income.

A lot of them can't survive out of such communities.

I rented a room from a crazy Japanese lady for my first two months in SF. Then a friend of a friend needed a roommate in a rent-controlled 2-bedroom with a view of the bay that he was paying $1000 total for.

Nearly everyone in America is rich.

There are a lot of stats being thrown around here about the median household income and such but these are generally all understated because there's a huge amount of income that does not get reported anywhere. For example:

1. Income from illegal activities such as drug sales, prostitution, racketeering, gambling, embezzlement and political corruption as well as associated activities.

2. Small business owners understating revenue or improperly overstating expenses.

3. Various people working for cash either not reporting income or underreporting, think casino dealers, waiters, nannies, contractors, etc.

4. Non arm's length transactions - provision of services for money between family members or friends or even rental income.

These in aggregate probably account for around 10-20% of the economy in developed countries and substantially higher in developing countries.

Also,

5. Unrealized capital gains.

Even realized capital gains tend to be distributed as to depress the median income, because they can be lumpy across time without being lumpy across people. With that said, this probably has a bigger impact on the higher percentile #s than the median itself.

Also, don't forget that a lot of people lower in the income distribution are not poor. They may be retirees with considerable wealth, young adults with a lot of future earning potential, trustafarians with wealthy parents or students. This all means if you don't have much wealth, don't have parents who can help, not in school or otherwise in your early/mid 20's and have no illicit income or unrealized capital gains, you have to earn much more than the reported median income to be in the median financial shape.

racketeering made me laugh.

If I make 50k in Pittsburgh, I would need 100k to live in Brooklyn with same lifestyle.

I don't understand why upper middle class is being judged in nominal salary wages rather than buying power. If I can buy 5 apples for $5 in one place, and only 2 apples in another place, clearly the first place can make someone's dollar stretch further. Econ 101 no?

Is 50k upper middle class? Or you just using that as an example?

Every single family I know that makes 200k views themselves as simply "middle class". I know many families that make between 200k and 300k and not one of them views themselves as "rich". But, that debate has been beaten to death.