But if they're living on $30k in NYC, do they share their home with one or more roommates? Could they handle a $500 unexpected expense or would it devastate them?
At some age you want to be able to live life a bit more comfortably than in your early 20s, say.
When I moved to NYC, I was able to get a very comfortable apartment outside Manhattan but still very convenient to subway lines, and my rent (by far my largest recurring expense) was lower than I had been paying in my first job out of college 7 years earlier. Sure I had a roommate, but 7 years earlier I had was living with my S.O. Why do we automatically assume that a roommate == lower comfort of daily life than living with an SO?
In my case, I was unquestionably more comfortable in my 30s in NYC than in my 20s in the suburbs in a single family home.
I haven't lived there in a long time, but I lived in Brooklyn both with and without a car. The car rarely added any convenience and was a royal pain in the ass to find parking for. If not for the fact that my job was in CT and I ended up moving there, I would have sold it.
However, everywhere else I've lived, life was much easier with a car.