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Comment by thecoffman | Hacker News Reader

For all of the people in this thread saying "some of these aren't that bad" you seriously need to get some perspective. Come visit what's disparagingly called "flyover country." I live in the St Louis area and pay $450/month for my apartment. ~1100 square feet with a yard and a parking spot in a nice, safe neighborhood.

I fully realize that I may not have all of the opportunities available here as I would in NYC or San Francisco, but I've never struggled to find interesting, well paying jobs and there is more than enough going on in the St Louis area to keep a person entertained.

Far be it from me to judge other peoples' choices. You should do whatever makes you happy in life but, when you find yourself saying that a room the size of my closet "isn't so bad" of a living space, you might want to take a step back and reassess some things.

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"Far be it from me to judge other peoples' choices."

"...you seriously need to get some perspective."

you are definitely judging other peoples' choices. that's not a bad thing, but own up to it.

i have a good reason for not living in 'flyover country'. when i was growing up there, i had direct encounters with racist individuals on a regular basis. i have not had those encounters in nyc (i also lived in san francisco and had racist interactions there).

i like walking around people that don't look at me funny. rent in nyc is the best $2000/month i spend.

Hm. Visiting NYC and riding on the subway in Manhattan my friend and I were the only whites on the car and were called every name in the book by a group of blacks who were having fun seeing what kind of reaction they'd get. Racism is everywhere because it's part of human nature to fear people who look different from you. Goes back to tribal, pre-civilization times. If you think there are no racists in NYC you are in denial.

my reasoning is this: i lived in [texas, kansas, tennessee, california, d.c.] -> i directly experienced racism -> i do not live there anymore

i lived in new york city -> i did not directly experience racism -> i live here now

im not making any more general claims about the existence of racism in nyc. i dont have enough data for that.

for whatever reason, i do not have to worry about my skin color here. that is a valid reason for spending extra money to live in a smaller space, in my opinion. i believe that i have 'perspective'; the op was claiming that someone like me would not.

your reasoning seems to be: i experienced racism in nyc -> racism is part of human nature from tribal times -> there are definitely racist people in nyc. you should fill in the arrows with more evidence. i do not see how one conclusion follows from the other.

i will also make the point that racism against a majority race is different than racism against minority races. minority races in america have less available resources to prevail against racism, when averaged across the population. i sympathize with your incident, but my priority is ensuring that, as a minority, i minimize the time i spend dealing with racist acts towards minorities.

the above paragraph can be summarized as 'for an individual of a particular race, all racist acts are not equal'

Yes, racism is everywhere, but your story sounds a little fishy. I don't think you can ever be more than 20 feet away from a white person in Manhattan, 24 hours a day, and that's including Harlem.

More to the point, in a city where there's tons of diversity on every street corner, there might still be some racists out there but you can guarantee their racism is just making them miserable every day -- most of us enjoy the diversity.

I assure you the incident I described did happen.

Funny you should mention this. My first thought was, is it an OK place for a latino?

are you asking if latinos experience more racism in nyc on average when compared to other parts of the country?

i'm not sure.

i can say that you will likely experience racism directly when hailing a cab. i am guessing that cab drivers assume black and latino folks live far away from the bar scene, in neighborhoods where not many people are looking to take cabs. these cab drivers reason that picking up a black or latino person will result in a long drive to drop off the passenger, and a long drive back to a neighborhood that will have enough bar traffic to find another passenger. if you try to hail them, they will simply drive by and look for another passenger. i am basing this off several encounters i've had with friends who are black and latino, but no hard evidence otherwise.

there is likely some racism you will experience in predominantly rich, white neighborhoods as well, but mostly things on the level of being mistaken for a waiter or something.

i can't really say for sure though, don't have a lot of data for latinos.

they'll deny it all day long but LOTS of areas in the midwest and south are racist as shit. there's HUGE value to just being able to blend in and go about your god damn day without harassment, except you won't know it until you live in a place where you stick out.

people who are from these areas will say "i encountered more racist people in the north/west/whatever" but they're usually just referring to people who shared their racist opinion with them, not actually being on the RECEIVING END of a racist interaction.

which MAKES SENSE if you think about it - white people in manhattan or SF or LA are basically going to feel like a minority, and may seek a little bit of empathetic camraderie by complaining about race X Y or Z. if a white person does this in vastly majority white area they're just going to seem like an asshole with a chip on their shoulder.

the coastal areas make it easy to blend in no matter who you are. nobody is going to hassle you or ask you stupid ass questions.

I think some areas depend on city size. Moving from New Mexico to (southwest) Virginia I realized that small-town southern cities are extremely backward, especially with racism. However, head North to the northern 1/3 of VA and it's as diverse and accepting as any decent city.

The northern third of VA is basically the DC metro area.

northern virginia is a coastal 'elite' area DC metro.

definitely not 'flyover country' as the original post described.

Experience has been that folks are more openly racist, but at the same time less serious about it. I can speak to Texas: there are a lot of good ol' boys (especially in energy, oil, and gas), but people are friendly and fast to warm up.

The way it's been presented to me has been that Southerners "hate the race and love the people" while in the rest of the country it's "hate the people and love the race".

My (admittedly limited) sampling has been that the Texans I know are less seriously racist than the folks I've worked with from New York or other big coastal cities.

> and a parking spot

Is this a parking spot of the optional, nice-to-have variety, or of the mandatory, can't-live-without-a-car variety? There are lots of different lifestyle tradeoffs in cities, and different things that might cause you to step back and consider moving. For me personally, I was sick of driving. Whether I have to drive everywhere is much more important than the size of my living space. I don't particularly mind small living spaces, especially if it means I can often be out of my small living space just by walking out the door into the city. Though I do prefer them to have some good natural light.

Of course, I didn't move to NYC either, so I don't know whether its particular set of tradeoffs is worth it overall.

Of the factors that I consider when I decide what city I want to move into, apartment size/price is pretty far down on the list. Those who weight those things differently will of course not live in those sort of places. Neither is more correct than the other, nor does one require more reevaluation than the other.

Depends on how you live. I am a east coast city person through and through, so it might be my bias, but these rooms seem not all that terrible.

Raising kids, living with a significant other, sure. You need space in those. But for a post-grad getting started who isn't a homebody and mostly just needs a place to sleep and store food, I don't see why they'd need to reaccess their life.

Yeah, I'm coming from the perspective of someone who spent much of their early life on the east coast. At that point in my life my apartment was just that place I crashed after partying. I hung out, ate, and generally lived elsewhere throughout the city.

These days my life has changed and my apartment is more of a place that I wind down after work. I would not consider living in these places now, but in my past? Absolutely.

For all of the people in this thread saying "some of these aren't that bad" you seriously need to get some perspective.

7-year New Yorker here.

By NYC standards, they aren't that bad. They're unattractive and small, but I've seen a lot worse.

Some of the places that I've had realtors show me make these places look like palaces. When I first got here and was living on close to nothing, I found (on Craigslist) a Williamsburg loft where there'd literally be a shower curtain separating my "room" (which was filthy) from a dark, tenement-like space with ~12 people in it. Kitchen stuff was at least 50 years old and probably didn't work. I visited at 10:00pm on a Thursday and it was loud as hell. $1200 per month. Um, no thanks. (By the way, Williamsburg has the most intense negative energy on earth. Hipsters sound okay in theory but I can't fucking stand them in practice. To give one a job is like pouring salt on a slug, except a good thing in the former case because the whining is entertaining.)

However, I agree with you. If you can get a stream of good jobs out in the Midwest, that is the way to go.

It's honestly not worth the cost of living here for most people. The high rents here are driven by (a) asshole foreign speculators that the government irresponsibly lets into the market, when a 6-months-and-1-day rule is really in order, (b) various legacy rent-control systems that wouldn't be a big deal except in the context of extreme price inelasticity-- I have no problem with the idea of rent control, or even with its continuation for the legitimate beneficiaries; but when upper-middle-class well-connected asswipes buy their way into an arrangement that's superior to ownership, and lock up housing stock, that's wrong, (c) NIMBY like you wouldn't believe, (d) parentally-funded hipster zeros whose guilt-ridden spawners decided they have some entitlement to the "New York Experience" (at $2-6k/month) even though they do absolutely nothing for anyone, (e) the fact that in investment banking and large-firm law, there really are major career benefits to living here (you pretty much need to live in Manhattan to get promoted in soft-side banking; trading is more of a meritocracy where you can live whereever you want as long as you show up on time). If none of these apply, New York is not worth the cost of living here. It is nice, if you take out the cost problem; I just think having savings and, eventually, the freedom with having a nest egg, improves the average person's quality of life by more. (You might guess that I don't intend to be here in 10 years, although I'm very glad I spent the 7 that I have.)

>>>7-year New Yorker here.

>>>The high rents here are driven by (a) asshole foreign speculators that the government irresponsibly lets into the market, when a 6-months-and-1-day rule is really in order, (b) various legacy rent-control systems that wouldn't be a big deal except in the context of extreme price inelasticity

Um, no. Second-generation life-long New York native here.

These insane prices are driven up by people like you who come here, don't know the proper prices, don't know why the hell we have rent control or what it is and never check to see if you're being ripped off, and so drive everything the hell up. Period.

These insane prices are drive by people like you who don't know how to do math. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_New_York

As of 2011, more than 60% of all apartments in New York are price regulated in some way. Rent stabilization destroys the incentive for developers to maintain and improve properties, and combined with the ridiculous historical preservation laws binds their hands in replacing properties with higher-capacity housing.

That's why most of the housing in Brooklyn and Queens is former tenement housing built god knows how long ago and maintained like crap. Landowners can't easily decide to just tear that shit down and put up mid/high-rises that could house 10x more people and bring down prices.

The difference between median market rate rents and median stabilized rents are quite small outside of Manhattan south of 96th Street.[1] Many neighborhoods have large number of nominally rent stabilized being offered for preferential rates (i.e. below the legally allowed maximum rent.)

Also, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx have plenty of nice, and dense, housing. You should try leaving Downtown Manhattan by Disney World (tm) every once and a while.

[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/realestate/rent-stabilized...

>>>and put up mid/high-rises that could house 10x more people and bring down prices.

Except rent prices never go down. This is what you outsiders don't freakin understand. Even if you got rid of the rent control and stabilization laws, made it all "free" market, you'd never, ever see a decrease in rents. When people fled post-9/11 and no one was renting, rents did not go down. They side-stepped that by offering one or two or three months of "free" rent, while the registered rent remained in the city's books. Rents never decrease. And never will unless there is some catastrophe that makes the city inhospitable.

If there are laws that limit how much rent can go up, it would be incredibly stupid to ever ever ever lower your rent.

Hence the games you see being played.

First, there is no reason to believe outsiders to NYC have a better or worse grasp of the underlying economics than insiders to NYC.

Prices in NYC do go down. Rents in NYC fell 10-12% during the down turn (and of course 2-3 months of "free" rent is economically indistinguishable from a drop in rents).

Moreover, rents are sticky like most prices. What increased supply does is keep the rent from going up so quickly.

(and of course 2-3 months of "free" rent is economically indistinguishable from a drop in rents).

I hate the "free months" with a passion, because they carry an implicit rent-raise next year: even if rent stays the same, your effective rent rises because you're paying for 12 months instead of 11.

I usually try to negotiate the "free months" into a lowered rent (e.g. $2250/month instead of $2400 with a one-month concession). It means that I pay a little more in the first year, but next year's rent will be anchored to this year's.

Rent control is a red herring. It is dying along with the aging tenents still on it. Rent stabilization, including all the new "affordable housing" units built to get luxury developers more air rights or a tax abatement, is here to stay.

Not that either one effects the outer boroughs much (minus the parts of Brooklyn that might as well be Manhatten). As it happens that other city is also where you'll find most real New Yorkers living.

These insane prices are driven up by people like you who come here, don't know the proper prices

You should then do me a favor and tell me how I get a deal at the proper prices. I agree; the cost of living here is ridiculous. Show me how not to pay four-digit rents for a 1BR within 30 minutes of work and I will be very grateful.

don't know why the hell we have rent control or what it is and never check to see if you're being ripped off

Rent control was originally set in place in the 1940s to prevent a housing spike when people came back from the war. A good thing? It would be, if everyone could participate. Right now, though, that's not the case.

I have no problem with those who were alive during that time keeping rent-control. However, I do have a problem with it when people making $250,000 per year get in on RC because they have connections and pay key money to the children of the deceased. That I have a problem with. And then these hypocritical limousine liberals brag about how they're "sticking it to The Man" by using their connections to get a deal literally superior to ownership.

>>>I have no problem with those who were alive during that time keeping rent-control. However, I do have a problem with it when people making $250,000 per year get in on RC because they have connections and pay key money to the children of the deceased. That I have a problem with. And then these hypocritical limousine liberals brag about how they're "sticking it to The Man" by using their connections to get a deal literally superior to ownership.

Oh, I agree completely. I once worked for a boss making six figures who was paying the kind of rent I could afford and he was lucky because he'd been in that place for over twenty years. But what's the solution? If you charged him rent based on his income, the registered rent increases, and will never go down because the landlord will make sure the next tenant has a six-figure income.

New York City rents are an insane system that really does no one any good, especially for those who work and don't make six figures -- which is most of the people who live in NYC.

Downvoting me is just denial. Own up to it.

I'm downvoting you because you are being needlessly ascerbic amongst other things.

If rent is becoming ridiculously high, the laws are inadequate. It's not anybody's 'fault'. Own up to it.

No, because I've seen this with my own eyes and heard it time and again. Landlords quoting a ridiculous rent to someone not from the city -- and getting that rent. Even I was screwed once, thinking I had a reasonable rent and then finding out -- after going to landlord-tenant court -- that the registered rent was actually one-third of what I'd been paying and I'd been illegally overcharged (yes, the landlord was ordered to refund the overage).

New Jersey is a free rent market. Hoboken and Jersey City rents went sky-high from the 1980s on -- even as ginormous skyscraper apartments were being built on the waterfront as "affordable" (to who!) apartments. Everyone who had lived there for decades got screwed out of living there.

> No, because I've seen this with my own eyes and heard it time and again.

This is completely irrelevant. The problem persists no matter what you think people 'should' do. The only thing that will change the status quo are laws that prohibit people from taking advantage of others.

Ultimately, this is just an instance of a classic conservative vs. liberal debate, so you may simply be incapable of seeing my point of view.

That said, I'm curious for myself how I might stick landlords on illegally high fees. In New York, what would be the best way to go about this? Is there a database I could refer to, or an agency I could get in touch with?

> By NYC standards, they aren't that bad. They're unattractive and small, but I've seen a lot worse.

3-year New Yorker here.

By NYC standards, most of these are bad. There certainly are worst places that cost more than what's being shown here, but that doesn't make these "not bad". My first apartment here had two separate rooms, a large kitchen, a bathroom and a "foyer", for $1k/month.

The only reason for living in any of the rooms they've shown here is an absolute need to live in that particular neighborhood, whether you're doing it because you need to be next to your job, or because you need to be neck-deep in the "culture" of that particular neighborhood.

I do however agree with you that New York isn't a good fit for most people, but for some people it's the only conceivable place to live.

Been living in New york for almost 30 years now and these places are not bad. Trust me, there is much worse out there.

Guys, I've been in New York for 70 years and these places are pretty bad. Trust me on this one.

> Hipsters sound okay in theory but I can't fucking stand them in practice.

i don't know, they sound pretty terrible in theory also

Good point. I guess I should say "borderline tolerable, from a distance" instead of "okay".

> Williamsburg loft where there'd literally be a shower curtain separating my "room" (which was filthy) from a dark, tenement-like space with ~12 people in it. Kitchen stuff was at least 50 years old and probably didn't work

Are you talking about McKibbin by any chance? People live there as a sort of "experience" if that makes any sense - look how New York it is.

McKibbin isn't in Wburg. It's where the people too hipster for Wburg go.

Besides, McKibbin is so 00s, as explained by Gawker: http://gawker.com/5431831/bushwick-artist-communitytrailer-p...

It's a perfectly reasonable decision to live in a closet if that's all you can afford in the city you want to live in.

When I travel, I often stay in dorms, not because I can't afford a room, but because it's more fun and I feel better about being part of a community. Many dorms might be undesirable holes in your mind, but they also might be a lot more fun.

Some people place little value on the room they sleep in and a lot of value on having access to an amazing city like New York. In fact, I'd say that's often a better life choice than isolating yourself in the suburbs.

I agree that these places are not that bad statistically – I've heard horror stories and Craigslist is full of places like this – but I would never live in any of these apartments and I was able to find great apartments with lots of light and space (in Brooklyn, mind you) for under $1200.

I've actually always wondered who takes apartments like these. Either people with no taste, no plans to ever be home, or no time to hunt (it usually takes a week or two to find a good place).

You need to factor in different lifestyles as well. In more rural areas, you spend significantly more time in your home. Partly because it's nicer, partly because they're fewer choices. In a place like Manhattan, it's not uncommon for your home (esp. if it's small) to be little more than a place you sleep & bathe.

(That's not to say one is better than the other -- each to their own.)

They really don't look that bad. Everything's relative I guess.

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