Comment by lefstathiou | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lefstathiou | Hacker News Reader

I’ve been in NYC 18 years (went to college here) minus a 1 year stint in Miami. I grew up in Atlanta. I’m married with two kids under three. I absolutely love it here…

You either love NYC or you hate it and thankfully you will know where you fall within 1-2 years of moving. It can be intense.

I personally love the energy, diversity, ambition, serendipity and grit. I love being able to walk and discover something new every time, no matter how often I’ve walked the path. I love how much it is constantly changing. I love the museums, parks, theaters and art galleries. I’ve traveled all over the world and no city compares for me (Hong Kong is my second love).

If you are a homebody, this is not the right place for you. If you don’t enjoy meeting new people, likely not the place for you. If you thrive off of nature, hiking, surfing, playing golf, this is likely not the place for you.

The physical quality of life in nyc is inferior in almost every way, it’s the intellectual and social quality of life that keeps millions tied to it.

Happy to answer any questions.

Edit: Final item to add, in nyc there is no shame to having roommates until you enter a committed relationship and move in together. Even couples have roommates. To outsiders it seems weird but it’s a necessity here.

Agree on most counts except the homebody thing. I'm mostly a homebody and moved here to NYC 8 years ago and love it. I like that I can just go on a walk and get a coffee or groceries or something, and just the liveliness of all the people out and about gives me some sort of energy. Other cities (US at least) feel desolate.

I still do normal social stuff sometimes, and yeah there are exceptionally great opportunities for that here. But even knowing they're there waiting for me when I want to do them has value to me on the 90% of days I'm just at home.

Yeah, I would second this: I'm a generally social person, but I spend plenty of weekends alone by choice. It's not uncommon to see people just go out and walk in NYC; I like to walk through my part of Brooklyn on Saturdays and make a general circuit of all of the farmers' markets, watch the chess games, &c.

I suppose that's not exactly the same thing as a homebody, but just to say that you can live and thrive in this city without being an extreme type-A extrovert.

I used to do walks in Nyc and sf regularly when I lived there. I think the SF walk was a lot more interesting to be honest. The views are amazing, the architecture is always interesting, and there are weird shops throughout (note this was SF 20 years ago). NYC was interesting but it lacked the “oh wow I will just keep going until I hit water” drive for me. Also I found doing walks in Brooklyn can be more scary than Manhattan - I did a walk through Brownsville and it did not go well.

I actually won’t dispute this — I spent an afternoon walking around SF a few years ago, and it is a consistently beautiful city in a way that NYC is not. There are beautiful parts of NYC, but the city as a whole doesn’t have a unified architectural theme or street culture.

That being said, it’s a much larger city, and you can walk an entire SF’s worth without leaving Brooklyn. The things that I like during my walks are maybe a little bit more muted than architecture and making my way to a waterfront: I like seeing the streetvendors, chess players, people picnicking and, particular to Brooklyn, how the streets have been cut up by two centuries of transit changes.

I lived in SF for 10 years and recently moved to Manhattan. I feel like there's a lot more stigma associated with having roommates in NYC or LA than in SF, at least among the yuppie millennial crowd.

Cool to see this sentiment. Hong Kong is my first love, but the only other city that had a similarly energetic vibe to me was New York.

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