Reasons Not To Move to New York

Street fair on Amsterdam Ave. These street fairs shut down traffic.

1) Public Transit Really Doesn't Save You That Much Money

Public transit was supposed to be New York's saving grace financially, the one reliable method of saving money in the city. A monthly subway pass pretty much covers it, right?

No. Sometimes there's subway construction and your stop is closed. Sometimes you want to go crosstown and the buses are too slow. Sometimes you're carrying something expensive and you don't want to take a late night subway. All of the above means your ass is taking a cab at around ten bucks a pop. Transportation costs in New York easily equal or surpass my $90 / month gasoline budget here in LA (and by the way, I haven't come close to spending that much since I quit my job).

But you're still not paying auto insurance, you point out. True, but any savings on auto insurance are cancelled out by the increase in rent.

And I haven't even gotten to higher cost of living yet. What kind of economy asks me to pay $1.75 for a bottle of Vitamin Water?

Perfect fatality, Los Angeles. S+ rank. Would you like to continue, New York?


2) My New York Roster Will Lose Many Key Players To Free Agency

My time in New York was such that I literally didn't have to make any plans. Everyday I'd wake up, and I'd get a text message or a phone call from somebody telling me where to be at a specified time. Then I'd eat whatever food had been decided on by other parties. This worked out quite well, as I got to see a great deal of the city in a relatively short period of time.

It's certainly easy to have a good time in New York when you have a deep bench of friends in the city. But starting in about a year, I'd say this thick posse is going to be halved, with people departing for new careers and new lives. My friend George says this is a staging ground for people on the way to their actual lives. For half my friends in New York, he's right.



Danielle walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.


3) I Can Live In New York, But Can I Work In New York?

I like New York. Some parts of the city (such as my friend Danielle's neighborhood in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn) have a sense of community you'd never get in Los Angeles. You don't have to drive, and you're surrounded by lots of fun old stuff - museums and books and buildings.

On the other hand, the city is beginning to feel like a time capsule of itself - kind of like Paris. You just get the lingering, uneasy sense that New York's most exciting days are behind it. I love many writers and artists from the city, but I have absolutely no desire to be part of that tradition, which I suspect is beginning to diminish anyway. There wasn't a single author from New York among the books I purchased from the Strand. And the Whitney Biennial couldn't find enough American (read: New York) artists this year, so they threw it open to the internationals. This is all anecdotal, but still.

Also, it's not a quiet place, and that's kind of a prerequisite for my job. Yes, I am aware that I can seek quiet in New York, but that's not exactly the same thing.

What I'm saying is, it doesn't really feel like a place where I would write.