Choosing the Suburbs Over Brooklyn
Are would-be Brooklynites flocking to the suburbs? The cover story in yesterday’s real estate section of the Times looks at how relatively cheap home prices in the suburbs are luring New Yorkers who find they can get way more bang for their buck in parts of Westchester, Connecticut and Jersey than in the city. While…
Are would-be Brooklynites flocking to the suburbs? The cover story in yesterday’s real estate section of the Times looks at how relatively cheap home prices in the suburbs are luring New Yorkers who find they can get way more bang for their buck in parts of Westchester, Connecticut and Jersey than in the city. While the article mostly focuses on the widening price gap between Manhattan and suburban properties, it notes that some people who would’ve bought in Brooklyn are also finding the suburbs cheaper:
Ludovic and Fabienne Ledein, who live and work as jewelry designers in Dumbo, visited nearly a dozen lofts in Dumbo, Red Hook and Williamsburg looking for something to buy for less than $600,000. They needed enough space to work at home and to put up friends and relatives from Europe. But what they wanted cost more than twice what they could afford…They found their answer in Westchester County, in New Rochelle. For about $600,000, they bought 1,350 square feet in the newly renovated Knickerbocker Lofts, a converted factory downtown that was built 117 years ago.
Any readers contemplating a similar move?
Cashing Out of New York City [NY Times]
Photo by uicukie.
So true, 1:58 and the other who commented on DWI’s. I take for granted how much safer and easier (and more fun) it is living in NYC and going out and drinking wine with dinner or cocktails at a party without even having to think about being sober enough to drive…until I try and do that when I’m traveling elsewhere in the country and have my rental car. What a tedious pain in the a**. I think I may have finally been convinced to not bring teenage kids (once I have some) to the suburbs, in thinking about this. I tried my best as a teen in the South to not drive when I’d been drinking, but sometimes it was unavoidable, because however buzzed I was I was more sober than my friends. Or I wouldn’t realize I was drunk until I was already driving.
As for gas, a friend was saying it’s nearly $100 to fill her SUV now. And my mother spends $60 to fill her little 2-door Mercedes every week. So yeah, you gotta calculate that in too, along with the auto insurance and car payments and maintenance.
1:55 – And a tank full of $5/gal gas in your FUV.
DWI point is legit.
I went to high school and part of college in LI with so so many stupid kids that would be drunk and behind the wheel EVERY Friday night. I knew all too many who died while driving drunk or by other drunk drivers. It is definately a culture out there, and I am glad I dont ever have to think about that living in the city now.
welcome to the 2 hour commute. Make sure you have satellite radio and a ‘roid pad.
These arguments for the suburbs can make sense on paper, but then you confront the reality of living in the no-culture zone. Long Island would kill me in a slow numbing death. We have friends who live out there, and they made their house really cute, but they have nothing in common with any of their neighbors whatsoever. All their friends are in the city. Too depressing.
The best candidates for living outside the city are those who have an at-home business for which they need the space, who don’t commute often, and even then they should choose a more cultural town upstate than go to LI. The towns upstate have far more gays and artists; the “Gay Bohemian” factor as it’s called in business points to that being a better financial investment.
The whole suburbs vs. City thing is so bogus – its simply a matter of personal preference.
I know plenty of people who grew up in the suburbs and are very interesting, smart, sophisticated and full of wisdom and I know plenty of people who grew up in the city who are shallow, sheltered, simple-minded and boring.
As for raising kids – I prefer the city for one very simple reason = DWI
“there are many, MANY people out there who will never say they live in new jersey. ”
who gives a sh*t?
why not live your life for what is best for yourself and your family and not for what everyone else thinks about it?
not saying one way or another is better, but this is a pretty stupid reason to base a decision on.
JFC.
12:30 – If you need to use Wyndanch as your representation of LI Schools then you are clearly desperate to make a point for which real facts do not provide any evidence.
and as for diversity 1:14 – while the neighborhoods are in fact relatively segregated the reality is so is much of NYC and as for the schools with a few exceptions, suburban schools are generally more integrated then public schools in NYC.
11:10 great points.
On the other hand:
Suburbs are only scary because suburban people have been living there and creating their sick little gated communities there for too long.
Personally, I welcome the spread of diversity to the suburbs (and rural areas) and I’m excited that more brooklynites, manhattanites, and any other city dwellers are infiltrating the Great White Picket Fence. With today’s changing workplace, there’s no reason we have to be clinging to that turn of the century mentality of the City as Core. Many of us can actually work from home, with a little adjustment.
However, the city is still an essential place to be schooled (both literally and otherwise) — it’s where you grow up, get humbled, learn a little something about something other than the rosebush under your own nose, try your hand at various different dreams, and hopefully meet some interesting people.
We need both. And that movement from one end to the other is what E. M. Forster called wisdom.