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
Not saying that it can’t be done Santa and in NO way am I trying to slight people who get by on that income, rather the opposite.
The question is should that be considered MIDDLE class?
Shouldn’t people who fall in the middle class be able to carve out decent living, be able to save for retirement, go on a vacation once every few years, and own a modest home? They should be able to live with some modicum of financial stability not just paycheck to paycheck.
35K may be middle class in some areas of America but not up here in NY. In NY that’s just getting by.
News Alert: Benson is confessing to being “fashionably liberal.”
35k may be fine if you’re a working 20-something, but a family of four living on one $35K income qualifies for food stamps. I think receiving welfare of any kind means you’re NOT middle class.
its fairly easy to live in this city making 30k a year. You just dont eat 50 dollar diners and buy jeans for 500 bucks a pair. However you dont really save much either.
Petebklyn;
Have you been to Bensonhurst recently? It is as much, if not more, Asian than Italian. 18th Ave, formerly the spine of Italian Bensonhurst is now lined with Chinese stores.
I liked this line in the article:
“Of course Bloomberg’s “luxury city” is largely a Manhattanite vision, with a few tentacles spreading to the adjacent parts of the outer boroughs. Its takes its sustenance from the enormous wealth generated by Wall Street as well as the presence of a large “trustifarian” class. This is very much the New York of The New YorkTimes: fashionably liberal in politics, self-consciously avant-garde, and devoted, more recently, to “green” consumerism.”
In other words: the Brownstoner crowd.
THL – you make a valid point about the income spread.
in NYC:
35K = a year is barely scraping by.
50K = you’ll survive
75K = not bad but you should make more
100K = Better, but you still feel poor
150K = you think you’re living the high life now….but hardly.
I am friends with a number of teachers all of which fall into that earning spread and they all live in park slope or prospect heights. Middle Class people are everywhere in Brooklyn. They just rent and have roommates.
‘….a middle class in New York….they live in Bay Ridge, Bayside, Brighton or Bensonhurst….” — anyone else think that Forbes talking ‘code’ for white middle-class. Just like lot of media are able to somehow vaporize other groups.
And that line about ‘vast sprawl’ that is Brooklyn and Queens is just more elitist drivel. Let them choke to death on their silver spoons.
Ditmas Park where the average home seems to sell for a million bucks? Hardly…..