Forbes Discovers New York's Middle Class
“Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s celebration of “the luxury city,” there’s still a middle class in New York, although not in the zip codes close to hizzoner’s townhouse. In many cases, they live in Bay Ridge, Bayside, Brighton or Bensonhurst, in the vast sprawl that is Brooklyn and Queens. Some of the emerging middle class also cluster…
“Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s celebration of “the luxury city,” there’s still a middle class in New York, although not in the zip codes close to hizzoner’s townhouse. In many cases, they live in Bay Ridge, Bayside, Brighton or Bensonhurst, in the vast sprawl that is Brooklyn and Queens. Some of the emerging middle class also cluster in places like Ditmas Park, a reviving part of Flatbush. The new population here is made up largely of information age “artisans”–musicians, writers, designers and business consultants who cluster in New York. They may have migrated there for the culture, but they stay because they find these neighborhoods congenial and family-friendly. “It’s easy to name the things that attracted us–the neighbors, the moderate density,” explains Nelson Ryland, a film editor with two children who works part-time at his sprawling turn-of-the-century Flatbush house. “More than anything, it’s the sense of the community. That’s the great thing that keeps people like us here.” — Forbes
11217 aka Browntoner’s very own Stuart Smiley! –
“Number one, yes…I do think I’m extraordinary.”
You got the eyes rolling among everyone reading the post. But not to worry… you are good enough, smart enough and, gosh darn it, people like you.
Northsloper – I’d like to add “persistence” to your list of factors for success.
That being said, 11217 makes a fair point that you can vote with your feet when it comes to jobs. I don’t earn $24K anymore doing 12 hours a day 7 days a week researching in a lab because I made a decision, and then reschooled, to enter a career that did pay. I have an old labmate who complains bitterly about his income compared to what he imagines I am earning. Funnily enough he doesn’t refer to the fact that he didn’t surrender 4 years of his life working full time and then going to school in the evening until 10.30pm and gettin home at 15 mins before midnight and having no weekends to speak of for four years. Not that I’m bitter either.
“I think the point that you’re missing 11217 is that we need teachers, we need firemen, we need police officers and the like.”
I have two friends who are teachers in NYC. Both make over 50K and both own their own apartments (bought in the last 3 years) and did so without help from mom and dad.
Guess we know different people.
I don’t know where you’d get from my comments that I don’t understand that we need these people. They are some of the most important jobs on the planet.
TownhouseLady – incorrect…policemen and fireman are NOT required to live within NYC.
And those aren’t only jobs where people have spouses work or live with roommates. That is just about everyone except the maybe top 10%.
(and those cops you know are trading wages for pension at age 45)
“Most of them can’t afford to buy a home in the city they work in (yet are required to live in).”
And once again, it all comes down to this completely false statement.
They CAN afford to live in this city, just not in the neighborhoods you say are worthy.
You can buy a 2 bedroom home in parts of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx for 200K.
You’ve somehow got it through your head that everyone should be able to afford to live in Manhattan or Brownstone Brooklyn apparently. Just because these areas WERE affordable 20 years ago, does not make it so now.
As I posted the other day…Park Slope in 1880 was the wealthiest enclave in the country.
Hear that everyone? Quit your *FUN* jobs in social services! You can achieve much more than you’re giving yourself credit for!
I think the point that you’re missing 11217 is that we need teachers, we need firemen, we need police officers and the like. These people do not get paid a lot of money. In fact while the salaries they earned once upon a time (the 1970’s) used to place them solidly within the “middle class” now leaves them in the lower-middle to lower class.
How do I know? My dad was a cop and my mom was a housewife and we lived well, quite well. I know a few cops now and sadly, for them, not so much. They live with roommates or are married and their spouses all work and a lot take PT security jobs just to make ends meet (not, as some have contended to buy $500 jeans). Most of them can’t afford to buy a home in the city they work in (yet are required to live in).
Get a grip, 35-150K is a far cry from middle class.
Should I keep finding quotes?
I am great. I am the greatest poster on brownstoner. I love me!!
“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdomâ€
“I don’t see why those two things are incompatible.”
I know, which is why so many of your thoughts seem so odd to me.
By definition, they are incompatible.
By definition, 49% of people are below average.
This is not a world where everyone is special and amazing like on a children’s TV show.
Success requires a combination of several things, including hard work, skill, and opportunity to name the most obvious.
It is a common conceit among successful people to pretend that we are all talented, opportunities can be made at will, and that anyone who isn’t successful fails because they don’t work hard enough.
It would be a nicer world if this were true, but that is not the case.
Some people absolutely do lack the skills needed to succeed.
Some people really didn’t have opportunities at a time in their life when they could have taken advantage of them. And others had the opportunities but lacked the skill to see them.
Many of the hardest working people in the world earn little, fail repeatedly, or spin their wheels on one unsuccessful project after another.
None of these things make these people bad people. In fact, many of them are some of the best beings walking this planet.
But they are not wealthy.
And telling them that they could be if only they would do X or had only done X when they were 25 is pointless and cruel.
And for 5 years these people have been priced out of NYC at a faster and faster rate.
Whether or not that is a good thing is, of course, another issue.