Brooklyn Brownstones Stay All in the Family
This morning The Observer reports on how many kids who grew up in houses in the Brownstone Belt are, as adults, moving back in with mom and dad. The trend is seen as having a lot to do with brownstone neighborhoods now being hip and yet frequently unaffordable for recent grads who might otherwise make…

This morning The Observer reports on how many kids who grew up in houses in the Brownstone Belt are, as adults, moving back in with mom and dad. The trend is seen as having a lot to do with brownstone neighborhoods now being hip and yet frequently unaffordable for recent grads who might otherwise make a go of it alone:
All the graduates interviewed for this story agreed that living on your own in New York City was possible, especially if you had a well-paying corporate job. But for those who hope to someday own property in the areas where they grew up, or to make a career in a less lucrative field, living with your parents makes a certain kind of sense; you can’t afford not to.
The bigger question, maybe, is how much more prevalent this phenomenon is in brownstone areas (which often have bigger houses than in other parts of the city) than it is in other NYC neighborhoods or even the U.S. as a whole. Could this just be part of a larger cultural shift in which more kids are coming back home post-college, or is it indeed more common in brownstone Brooklyn?
Full Brownstone Nests) [NY Observer]
Photo from Orchard Lake.
And obviously they made such a great life, that even their kids don’t want anything to do with them. Depressing.
I would NEVER go on a second date with someone if they told me they lived with their parents.
NEVER.
Moving “back home” implies moving backwards in life.
No thanks.
I’ll continue doing what my parents did and make a life for myself.
Moving “back home” is a bit depressing. But I do recommend everyone getting together on a building, starting from scratch, building something green or restoring something beautiful. It brings new life into the entire family circus. It’s been fun and fulfilling for us. Please don’t count it out as an option, you’d be surprised how much you can learn from one another.
yes, i rented for 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.
that is 7 years, no?
hmm, 2:14, you moved here in 2000, rented for 7 years, and bought in 2006. congratulations on the creation of the first successful time machine to allow you to achieve your dreams!
but i agree, if more children were forced to live with their parents into adulthood, we’d see a serious increase in Scrabble-related homicides.
THat’s why I was saying that when I decided to bring everyone together under one roof, I thought my hip little world of fringe-dwellers would disown me as a friend for not being “cool” and “independent” enough. Despite the fact that I supported myself through college (including paying for it myself) and can afford a nicer place on my own than most of them can.
IT IS HARD WORK to live with your family. It’s a HUGE sacrifice. The kinds of collaborations, compromises and constant communication that has to occur really test your selfish little “I’m independent fuck you all” attitude. Trust me I know, cause I lived that way for years, and felt very sanctimonious about my supposed rights and freedoms and lack of accountability to anyone but myself.
but there’s something much more mature about a cooperative lifestyle than anything I experienced as a me me me yuppie-to-be. And whoever said that italy has become pathetic because of all the kids living with their parents — IT’s ALWAYS BEEN LIKE THAT. So either italy has ALWAYS BEEN PATHETIC, or the reason for it becoming pathetic is something else — like the fact that italian manufacturing completely whored itself out to the export industry, diluting the quality of all of its most important crafts trades because it wanted to cash in on easy profit. That’s why italian goods like furniture, so valued in the 20 s and 30s, all the way to the 50s, completely lost all integrity in the 60s and now it’s the ugliest crap on the market.
All of us work in creative fields and being able to use each other for support and imput has always been important. My parents are basically my friends, and have always been far more pioneering than the coolest kids I knew. They always taught US shit. That had nothing to do with their age, only their mentality and their nerve. If we do lack it nowadays, I don’t blame living with parents (like I said, this is just the start for me), I blame learning everything sixth hand — from the internet, television, basically the commercial machine. I try to learn from my friends,peers, and direct personal experience. you want to be isolated in order to feel “independent”? That’s cool. But you might be missing a lot of challenges. I know now that I was.
The more I read lately, the more I feel as though many people in this country are satisfied to devolve instead of evolving.
Yeah, sure. Move in with your parents and don’t live an independent, productive life of your own. Why work hard when you can have it handed to you by your parents.
God who ARE you people??
I’m beginning to think that as someone in her early 30s who hasn’t lived with her parents full time that *I’m* bucking a trend. Only sheer desperation would have driven me back to living with my parents.
Think about it, it’s only within the past couple of generations that young adults moved out on their own.