OT: "LIfe" NYC-Style

The average apartment size for Tokyo is 200 sf, and has been that way forever.

I wouldn't pay 3 grand for it, but for say, $800? Absolutely.

I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts, and I have great memories of walking through the woods, finding hidden ponds, and rock walls that had been around for hundreds of years. And I could do all within a mile or two of my childhood home.

My parents sold their modest house years ago, and it was torn down and an ugly McMansion with a three car garage thrown up on the lot. A nice little piece of woods near a waterfall that I always thought would be great for a hunting cabin was cut up and subdivided; did they build a cabin? No, two ugly McMansions are being built. They don't even suit the lot, they're just cookie cutter buildings from a book. "Yeah, just build pattern 38B. That will do fine."

And it's the same all over here, there's a historical 4 story stone mansion from the Guilded Age that was on a several acre lot and looked like a place you could film a TV series like Downton Abbey set in that era. The new owner sold a bunch of the land and it was subdivided. Now it's surrounded by three massive crapboxes for yuppies. It looks totally incongruous and frankly, like garbage.

I have no particular desire to own a large home. It just means more vacuuming.

NYC has its nice points - the arts, nightlife, and if you're a single young man there's hardly a better place to be.

But it also has a tendency to beat the life out of people if you stay too long. I can think of a lot of other American cities that are better deals long term. Hint: they're not on the coasts.

NYC also smells funny.

We downsized from 3600 sq.ft. to 2500 sq.ft., and moved to farm country, to cut our monthly housing expense down from $6K/month to ~$2K/month... and now are cramped on space for our "schtuff" ;-) ...Jim Thompson

Too fricking many people. ...Jim Thompson

There's another advantage to a small home. My house is full, so I know that if I buy anything I must throw something out. Since I'm constitutionally incapable of throwing things out, I don't spend much on transient /stuff/.

In Hong Kong they've got 275 square foot apartments selling for over $700,000.

Pretty much unaffordable for young people... you didn't think those Occupy protests were *really* about abstract 'democracy' did you? LOL

--sp

On Tue, 29 Dec 2015 07:23:54 -0800 (PST), snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com Gave us:

The place looked almost exactly like the one Korben Dallas had.

Needs a cigarette habit curing dispenser on the wall though.

On Tue, 29 Dec 2015 10:59:18 -0500 (EST), bitrex Gave us:

Don't park your car on the street either, unless it is an old klunker (maybe a re-sold worn out taxi) with bald tires and oem painted generic rims... Or it won't be there in the morning or will be up on blocks and/or burned out.

To own a car in NYC, one must also own an enclosed parking garage.

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno Wrote in message:

You can spend 15 grand a year renting a private parking spot in Back Bay in Boston these days if that's your jam. Some people don't bother - they park wherever they want and accept 5000 dollars a year in parking tickets as a cost of doing business. The f***ed up city government doesn't care - Babylon needs the cash.

Some talented kids, from smaller cities, get a big-bux job with Google or somebody and move to a big shiny city. It's an adventure. They socialize, explore restaurants, skateboard and ski and bicycle and stuff. They pretty much need a place to sleep. It sounds like fun to me. A 200 sq ft apartment, bigger than a dorm room, with a health club and shared rec spaces, is ideal for them, while they are young and single. These kids don't seem to want a lot of stuff, and don't cook much.

San Francisco smells great, mostly. The east coast is the place for artsy stylish types, whereas the west coast (excluding LA) is the place for fashion-impaired backpack tekkies.

I've never seen that happen to anybody, but most of the people I know are natives. I also know permanent immigrants from the midwest and they don't get the "life beaten out of them" either.

Have you been only in Manhattan? There are neighborhoods with streets lined with flowering trees that literally make the street smell like perfume. There is some type of tree, often 60 feet tall, in front of almost every private house and several around every apartment building, which is not the case in most cities. And the taxes and rents are no worse than property taxes and rents in the suburbs. The rents are worse in Manhattan of course, but who would want to live in a business district? That's a small part of the city, and about 40 minutes away by train from anywhere else in the city.

The difficulty is finding a parking space, but you don't worry about theft more than other places. This is not the 1970's when left-wing politics was at its apex and cops were under orders not to make arrests.

I survey Thai restaurants searching for one that has stuffed chicken wings. It's a labor-intensive dish and I've only known 2 places that made them. They stopped because it's too much work. They all have the wings in garlic sauce and that's good, but not pure heaven like the crispy stuffed wings.

Depends where you live. My elder daughter lives in Bensonhurst (outer Brooklyn near Coney Island), and pays way less than half that for at least triple the space. It's not in a particularly trendy area, of course.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

For a couple of million you can live in Riverdale.

On Tue, 29 Dec 2015 13:56:38 -0500, "Tom Del Rosso" Gave us:

That chef down in LA with the Thai-mex food trucks is the place ya outta be.

So go load up your trucks and move to Beverly...

You're nuts. Every street in all of NYC is lined with parked cars all night long, wherever it's legal.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

What does DecadentLoser know ?>:-}

When I was working a project in Germany and announced that I was taking my weekend in Strasbourg, France, they told me, "They steal cars over there" ;-)

To which I responded, "It's a rental, what do I care" >:-} ...Jim Thompson