Why I'm Leaving New York City [video] | Hacker News Reader

Why I'm Leaving New York City [video]

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Summary of 10 minutes video

a long-time Manhattan resident shares his reasons for departing from the city after 20 years. He emphasizes that his concerns extend beyond the high cost of living, focusing instead on the exorbitant taxes, which amounted to over 50% of his income. The speaker voices alarm over the city's spending priorities, particularly regarding public safety. He recounts personal experiences of dangerous encounters, such as a half-naked man attacking the air and a friend being sucker-punched. The speaker also criticizes the city's inefficient subway system, citing the $11 billion East Side Access Project as an example of mismanaged funds. He compares this cost to the Shanghai Metro, which could construct significantly more for the same amount. The speaker also laments the negative impact of the city's government, including endless construction projects that have ruined neighborhoods and an ineffective free daycare program for three-year-olds. These issues, along with the loss of affordability and quality of life, have led to a mass exodus from New York City, with half a million residents leaving since 2020. Despite his attachment to the city, the speaker has moved to New Jersey and reports an improved quality of life and better-run institutions.

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yes.

it would be polite to disclose this in your original post (although it was fairly obvious anyway)

I wouldn't have thought moving to NJ would improve your quality of life. NJ is a very angry state.

The author is walking around in Jersey city. Assuming he lives there, it’s a pretty nice place. I lived there for many years.

How long ago? It has become more dysfunctional in recent years. For example, read about the many cases of people calling 911 during emergencies and no one picks up the call. And their property taxes are positively skyrocketing due to the schools.

I like Jersey City, don't get me wrong. But I'd choose NYC over it any day.

My piece is a little paradise. Education is top notch, roads are taken care of. Even our average RWNJs aren't as RWNJ-y as they are most other places, probably because of point A. Were you hanging out in the left lane or something?

shhhhhh - dont give it up :)

Part of whats nice about it is that there isnt a ton of people and the NJ stereotypes work out in our favor.

What is an “angry state” - the people? The politics? …?

It does feel somewhat ironic to complain about the subway system… and then move to New Jersey. It’s also hardly a low tax haven, the property taxes are eye watering.

Generally speaking, as an NYC resident I’ll be curious to see longer term trends for people leaving the city. There was a notable exodus when COVID hit but my anecdotal experience is that it didn’t continue.

Property taxes aren’t nothing in nyc and there’s an income tax on top. Plus sales. No one knows where all the money is going.

I enter, as an European who only know NY for tourism: in most large cities we see a significant mean-income decrease simply because remote working have convinced many high income people going outside the large city, followed by not too old retired to do the same, swapping their vacation home with their old main residence. Due to it's size I imaging NY have experienced this phenomenon apparently less (due to the size) but substantially more.

Even if most "big & powerful" have done and do their best to fight remote work, their success is limited, even gifts like short workweeks and various benefits do not keep many in the office. There is no advertisement, people seems even to fear stating "I'm for WFH 100%", but most who works in jobs doable from remote actually want to do them from home. Meanwhile poor people keep going to the city seeking possible opportunities, collective transport since they can't own a car, social housing since they can't own/rent a home and so on.

This is actually a bit exaggerated for today, but it's the trend, covid have pushed many, many are back, simply because they are forced to be back and their secondary homes are not really usable to live the entire year, they have not enough services around and so on, but things slowly change, and the trend is the big city as a giant labor camp of poor, not owning nothing and being bound to services they need and no way to escape.

I raise a family in NYC and have watched some of the authors prior videos. He’s correct in pointing out the issues with the mental health crisis, which results in mentally ill people roaming the streets and subway. Taking our kids on the subway, it’s not something you’d engage with on a regular basis, but it’s there. On the other hand, we are happy with our kids schools and enjoy our social engagements in the city, dining out, etc. the preK bit sucks, they need to do a better job there (although I know many parents with kids in preK programs) and the migrant situation definitely needs to be better addressed. I guess it comes down to how much pain you are willing to withstand.

As another parent in NYC I agree with you. We take the subway a lot and 90% of our trips are absolutely fine but at times you will pass a mentally ill person and it can definitely put you on edge. But to my mind it’s akin to driving with my kids in the suburbs and having a near miss with a reckless driver. I’ve never felt truly unsafe though, and for us the perks of living here outweigh the negatives. That can always change though.

Free city-funded Pre-K is a big deal for parents and is a great use of tax dollars but if you don’t have kids you won’t be aware of it. So it’s not like the NYC gov can’t do good things. I just wish it did more.

People have been outgrowing the city and moving to the suburbs forever. Content creator isn’t special.

Citation: “Who needs a house out in Hackensack ack ack ack ack ack?”

There's more to NYC than downtown Manhattan. For example, roughly 1000sqft 2BR in Forest Hills go for around $3k/mo. A 30 minute subway ride from Times Square.

Contrast that with the $4k/mo studio price (which is believable) OP says you pay for in downtown Manhattan.

Anybody living in Manhattan views Queens as "Queens" and not NYC.

I’ve actually only ever heard people from the outer boroughs refer to Manhattan as “the city” or “NYC” or similar.

The closer you get to the city then the more familiar people are with the city. So you effectively "zoom in".

True. But why pay 4% of income to live in forest hills when you can live in great neck and be in manhattan in about the same amount of time?

The LIRR is good yes but there seems to be extremely few apartments available for rent in Nassau County. Or maybe it's just that I always filter by Allows Pets, I'm not sure.

If it were solely up to me I'd be fine living in Bayside/Little Neck, taking the LIRR, for the great Korean and Chinese food and the parks. But my wife prefers to stay where the subway is.

Many parts of LI have few or no apartments, or only 55+ apartments. Great Neck is an exception—-very similar vibes to eastern Queens but no city income tax, better schools, and better cops.

Can’t speak to pet policies.

Everyone’s experiences vary obviously but I find Long Island commuter towns to be very depressing places.

Some friends are moving from SF to NYC, safety being one of the reason. How safe SF is compared to NYC?

https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=policeactivity+ny...

Your friends can check for themselves.

https://crimegrade.org/crime-by-zip-code/

That site's information doesn't track with my direct experience of the area. I'm also suspicious that the entire purpose of the site is to advertise home security systems since it's a prominent entry in the site map. Also, they mention their maps are AI-generated from other data sources; this is strange and unusual for statistical views and doesn't increase my confidence either.

For zip code 94025 (Menlo Park), the Meta/Facebook campus near the bay gets a crime grade of F. I can think of several possible reasons for this...

https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-94025/

New York is the safest that it has ever been and has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the country.

Do you have some data on that? Wikipedia shows that out of the top 100 US cities NYC is roughly in the middle for violent crime rate. Pretty much any crime map is showing it as a hot spot.

Is this the list you were looking at [0]? NY is 20/100 for murder, 16/100 for rape, 40/100 for robbery (where 1 is safest). Below the national average for murder & rape according to [1] (above it for robbery, which isn’t great, but at 40/100 I’m guessing that robbery overall is more prevalent in cities and NY is still doing okay compared to other cities.)

Not sure what maps you’re looking at either, but visualizations of stuff like this sometimes mess up if they aren’t accounting for pop density well. NY is very big and very dense, over twice as many people as the next biggest (LA) and twice as dense as the next densest big (>1M people) city (Chicago). [2] (Note these are actual city boundaries comparisons, not metro area, which I believe is consistent with the crime stats used.)

I think the person you responded to is still technically wrong that “NY is the safest it’s ever been”. Crime rose nationally around 2020 and I think it’s only this year we’re starting to see pre-COVID crime levels again a lot of places. I think they were probably thinking of in comparison to the bad old days of the 70s, when NY was decidedly unsafe.

NY has problems like everywhere else. And with >8M people terrible things that make the news will happen every day even at below-average crime rates. But put in the perspective of large urban dense cities I feel like the city is kinda okay from a crime perspective.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities... [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities...

Yes, I was looking at the violent crime rate subtotal from your first link which places it at 42/100 at a rate of around 539 per 100k. The national average is around 381 per 100k. Being significantly above thw national average and close to the middle of the top 100 cities, does not seem like it "has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the country" to me. These are based on rates, so population isn't a direct factor and it will still show as a hotspot on any national or state level map since it's significantly higher than average and surrounding area.

The biggest, densest city in the country being below-median among other major cities for that stat still seems pretty good to me! Particularly since 1. NY is dragged above the national average on the cumulative stat by what are arguably “less severe” violent crimes (i.e. not murder, rape) and 2. Almost every city ranked better on that stat is very small comparatively, only two have >1M people. Every city that you could really consider a real peer of NY (LA, SF, Chicago, Miami, etc.) does worse.

Also, when ranked by that total the “best 4” aren’t really the best 4. They don’t report rape numbers, so they don’t get a total. And their numbers are all worse than NY on the other categories (murder, robbery, assault).

That's fine, but then the person making the comment should have added "among big cities".

BS. NYC was safer under Bloomberg than under this schmuck or the one before him. Not to mention we didn’t used to have pro-crime DAs.

Manhattan might have more mentally ill homeless people than before but as someone who grew up in Brooklyn and Queens things are way safer than they used to be, mostly thanks to gentrification (mostly due to Bloomberg rezoning the Brooklyn / Queens waterfronts) and not any of the recent mayors.

The gentrifying parts of Brooklyn + Queens (and the Bronx!) have gotten better—-no thanks to tweedledee and tweedledumb. But the parts that were already middle class have gotten worse, just like Manhattan.

Of countries which have experienced at least 1000 intentional homicides in a given year, NYC is comparable to Thailand, Zambia, Kenya, Peru in terms of murder risk

Good to know.

There are Wikipedia articles on this:

- "Crime in San Francisco": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_San_Francisco

- "Crime in New York City": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_New_York_City

The quoted numbers in the articles are from different years and somewhat outdated, though (2019 and 2022, respectively). For violent crimes the total rates are more or less the same, with some differences in the details (SF has considerably more robberies and NY considerably more aggravated assaults) . But for property crimes, the totel rate for SF is more than twice as high as for NY.

OMG shouldn't they be moving to Florida in that case!!! :) hahaha

These takes are always comical to me, because I really wish they would put some downward pressure on rents

While rents in SF crash, rents in NYC seem to reach a new ATH every month. The newest addition is how popular bidding wars have become. If all it used to take a few years ago was being the first person with good credit to apply, now you’re expected to give your “best and last” rent offer, maybe offer the broker some extra cash as well

So, yeah, there are YouTube videos about crossing the street with your kid because a shirtless man was yelling, and then there is reality of other families outbidding each other. There’s obviously more than enough people to fill all the available apartments, so I don’t see the reason it matters if one person leaves, there are 5 people bidding on paying more for their same apartment

New York City’s Vacancy Rate Reaches Historic Low of 1.4 Percent

https://www.nyc.gov/site/hpd/news/007-24/new-york-city-s-vac...

It's simple. For every high income person who moves out many more low-income people move in.

Meanwhile, those who stick around are ready to shell out more cash to upgrade to a safer area of the city.

It's a feedback loop.

That’s the thing people don’t realize about NYC. For everyone who complains about the high cost of living and move out, there are people making less than half or a quarter of what they are making moving in. Everyday. This puts a price ceiling on the cost of living.

Compare that with SF and Seattle where every new resident makes more money than the last and, IMO, the resulting cost of living is much higher.

My experience:

So many rats I accidentally kicked one while casually walking once. You see them literally everywhere.

In Manhattan regularly you walk around huge mountains of stinking garbage bags.

Constant noise

$16/gallon for organic milk at the grocery store

Streets with pot holes absolutely everywhere

Many subway stations that feel like you’re descending into a medieval dungeon. As you wait for the train you get to look at the track bed covered in mold, slime, and scurrying mice.

Actually clinically insane people laughing and talking to themselves everywhere, you get to be right next to them all the time (guess we didn’t need those clinics we shut down?)

I am so thankful every day that I got out of there.

Trader Joe prices in Manhattan are pretty reasonable.

I don't know why there are all these ex-NYC residents who all but cross themselves and shudder when remembering their time there and then it turns out that they never tried to live anywhere other than the busiest parts of Manhattan or, apparently, shop at anything other than bodegas.

(I'm with you on the garbage and crazy people, though.)

Meh. There aren’t so many rats and now business are required to containerize trash which will reduce rats. Soon all residents will have to as well. There aren’t any more potholes than you’d find in any city that goes thru something called Winter Milk is not $16/gallon (and don’t post some random link at one spot where it is). I don’t buy organic, a regular gallon is about the same at Whole Foods as at an aldi in NJ. Organic probably double. Congestion pricing will fund the MTA to improve on its system. The 2nd avenue line is quite nice.

I don’t want to get into a tit for tat but yes the milk is $16, at a regular grocery store. It’s on 81st and 1st you’re welcome to go visit it.

We are so thankful that you left.

It amuses me when people who leave NYC (and SF I suppose) feel the need to give a litany of exaggerated complaints about what a hellhole it is.

I’ve lived in Manhattan 30 years (after growing up in a suburb) and raised three children here and loved it.

> We are so thankful that you left. > It amuses me

You don’t sound amused, you sound like your feelings are hurt because someone doesn’t like the city you live in.

The only thing that is truly absurd and unjustifiable is the trash. Why is it acceptable to just leave bags of trash on the sidewalk? Having lived in and visited NYC off-and-on for 20+ years, I never quite got that one.

What’s there to get? There are no alleys in NYC for garbage trucks to use. There is no underground garbage collection system. There is too much trash to install permanent garbage bins on the sidewalk because these bins would be a huge permanent eye sore. You could potentially have each building use large plastic garbage bins, but then you will need a lot of bins for the same amount of trash, which would be an eye sore and a barrier to walking.

You'd think that the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in human history would figure out a trash solution other than "pile the bags on the street 24/7." That's what there is to get. And honestly, this attitude is quite typical of NYC – "it's always been this way, what's the problem?" It's one reason why the city never seems to actually get better at things other places like Tokyo or Singapore figured out decades ago.

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