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.
Many people who move to where I live do so in part to be able to do outdoor sports. There’s hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, sailing, and swimming. Not to mention every imaginable team sport for the kids. Sports and outdoor activities are a big part of our lives. The idea of suburbanites not being active is absurd. We do drive to the store, but we walk from our house to the 200 acres of state-owned land down the road and go for long hikes every weekend. I’m far more active than I was living in Brooklyn. As for the kids, in addition to team sports they spend hours running around outside–something a city can’t do unless someone takes them to the park. Of course, we take our kids to the local parks too.
You all are talking about cliches based on middle-America. It’s not at all the reality in New York’s better burbs.
8:03–I live in Croton. The commute is 15 minutes longer than my commute from Brooklyn–a compromise I am more than willing to make.
I grew up in the suburbs of LI (Suffolk County) and moved to Brooklyn while in college and have lived here ever since.
Whenever I go out to LI to visit I am always saddend by all of my school friends that never made it out and still lead the same dull dreary existence.
My pre-college life in the suburbs consisted primarily of drinking and driving, hanging out in the woods or corn fields with friends getting high, and the occassional thrill of a house party when someone’s parents were out of town. Probably 70% of the people I went to school with had the same life and I am so glad I am one of the few who didnt let that lifestyle permenantly infect me.
PS – Whenever I visit my parents they always rave about their favorite restaurants based on 1 criteria: Quantity of the food given.
I’m tubby for NYC standards, but when I go visit family in the midwest, people ask if I’m a model!
Well said 7:39.
Last time I was in a rural area I saw so many fat people it was truly disturbing. And these were young people in their 20’s that I saw, too. So sad.
there are trade-offs, sure but i truly believe that for this country to really move ahead and stop sitting back and coasting, there will be a need for a major cultural shift.
the diversity that america represents is key to the future of our country.
i see so many people i went to high school with who continue to live in the burbs who are just coasting. there is so much sameness, that it creates for large pockets of dead all over the country. urban areas make you strive to be better. they force you to use the survival of the fittest nature in all of us. and most of all, city living gives you more of a chance to make mistakes.
we learn most from the mistakes.
and the more mistakes we make, the further ahead we will go.
look at the countries now who will soon overtake the united states to become leading world superpowers. china and india.
so many mistakes in their past, but they learn from them and strive to move forward.
the u.s. is lacking this right now.
we need to be more curious, we need to learn more about other cultures and other countries. we need to open our minds.
we must continue to try to improve every day.
i believe a more communal, urban environment makes that a little easier.
So which suburb are you living in, 6:48? We’re looking for exactly what you’re describing – can’t say I’ve seen it though…
It’s not like city kids never play outside. Talk about cliches. City kids walk everywhere. Not ride in cars everywhere. Many city people make the effort to spend at least one month in the Summer out of the city. Frankly, I know way more kids who play outdoors because they go to city parks, than I know kids in the suburbs who do that. Sadly, being outside is less and less a part of the culture in suburbia. All studies point to that, and show people in urban environments are healthier. Look it up.
6:56, I don’t live in an urban burb. In fact, it is very rural. We are 15 minutes from an urban center, which is where some of the cultural amenities I mentioned are. The others are in small towns nearby.
As for 7:39’s comments, that’s too dumb to respond to. But I will say that my decision to leave Brooklyn was in large part based on the fact that I had grown up there and didn’t want that experience for my kids. People who had bad burb childhoods have an idealized idea of childhood in the city–the reality isn’t so hot.