August 30, 2001

1:04 PM

Good reason to move. (Or not, as the case may be.) Lessee, if I make $45k per year and own a little house in Athens GA I'd have to make $67K in Atlanta, $89K in DC, $133K in SF, $150K in Manhattan. No wonder all my friends who did move to Manhattan are all stark, staring bonkers now.
posted by jfuller (32 comments total)

Most people haven't even heard of the town that I live in, but they had it on their list... nice. Not that I plan on moving, but they must've done some thorough research considering most of the time I have to pick the nearest city to me for things like this.
posted by crankydoodle at 1:09 PM on August 30, 2001

Great resource. Thanks for the link, jfuller.
posted by msacheson at 1:17 PM on August 30, 2001

As a NYC resident I can’t stand to look at it. It is too depressing.
posted by mmm at 1:22 PM on August 30, 2001

Hey, you can move to Cleveland and live off of $42K for what you get in Manhatten with $150K. Not bad. I love my little city! :) Now, if I could only make $42K as a painter then I would be set!
posted by gloege at 1:22 PM on August 30, 2001

I used to complain about California real estate prices until I talked to a friend in NYC. Then, he got to complain until he talked to a friend in Hong Kong.

$3200 - $5700 for a 2 bedroom apartment? At least a movie ticket is only $7. Letsee, I'll take a month's worth of movie tickets, please. Where can I set up my tent?
posted by marknau at 1:30 PM on August 30, 2001

But you don't have to move to Manhattan - you can move to sunny Brooklyn or Queens where there's cheap(er) living to be had.
posted by panopticon at 1:38 PM on August 30, 2001

Now the trick is to get paid Manhattan wages while living in Athens, GA. <g>
posted by teradome at 1:39 PM on August 30, 2001

Can I just get wages here please? At least minimum wage or unemployment. Does selling two pieces of art work this year mean I am technically NOT unemployed. HELP!!!!

If I sell my body to support my art but not myself, is it still prostitution? Then can I get unemployment?

Damn. I need new canvas.
posted by gloege at 1:42 PM on August 30, 2001

My company rents a serviced apt in London's South Kensington (really upscale). Rent for a one-bedroom apt: GBP 4,500, or ~$7,000. Per month. It's not even that plush. A lot like an upscale doubletree or ameristay...
posted by costas at 1:46 PM on August 30, 2001

According to this, Minneapolis and Chicago have essentially the same cost of living for those who rent. $100,000 in Minneapolis = $100,459 in Chicago. Compare this to Milwaukee at $70,423, Detroit at $85,014, Boston at $91,616, San Francisco at $96,725, Los Angeles at $72,177, Portland at $66,406 and Seattle at $79,990. Also, Minneapolis looks more expensive than all of NYC, excluding Manhattan.

Why, as a Minneapolis resident, do I suddenly get the feeling that I'm getting screwed?
posted by mrbula at 2:06 PM on August 30, 2001

Well, Minneapolis is really known for its sunny beaches, you get those rich old folks moving in and the rent sky rockets.
posted by geoff. at 2:29 PM on August 30, 2001

So long, Seattle! Hello, O'Fallon, Missouri!
posted by Skot at 2:44 PM on August 30, 2001

These salary calculators (and other cost of living comparisons) are notoriously and woefully wrong. If you're using them for a real comparison (such as when you are considering moving or are negotiating a new salary), then you are making a huge mistake. The FAQ indicates some of the ways in which these calculators are inaccurate, but it downplays those reasons (by saying that other such calculators may use old data and by not going into details).

The mistakes are particularly obvious when it comes to New York city.

There is no way, for example, to meaningfully average the cost of living in Manhattan. The cost of living in Washington Heights is probably a third of that of Park Avenue in the 80s, but you'd never know that from this survey, because both of those neighborhoods are on the island of Manhattan. This sort of thing needs to be done by zip code, not by city.

Also, in New York City, transportation costs are lower due to great public transportation and the crucial fact that a good number of people don't own an automobile. Thus, weighting the results by only 10% for transportation cheats NYC out of one of its primary advantages; our average transportation costs per person per year are about 14% of household expenditures, while they are about 22% of a household expenditures in a city like Houston. That savings is not reflected in the calculations.

The best way to do these calculations is to weight each zip code according to its own household expenditure percentages and average salaries, not by an arbitrary weighting and city-wide averages. Anything else is just an amusing toy.
posted by Mo Nickels at 2:46 PM on August 30, 2001

Skot, trust me. O'Fallon ain't worth the savings.
posted by Mo Nickels at 2:47 PM on August 30, 2001

Happpy Labor Day. "Don't mourn for me boys, unionize."
posted by Postroad at 2:52 PM on August 30, 2001

we don't need to go far here in vancouver bc to see real estate prices skydive. for example, in surrey, about 45 min to an hour from downtown vancouver, $200k canadian gets you a nice big house with a nice big lot and some peace and quiet. $200k near downtown get you a nice shack a little bigger than a dog house.

i might be exaggerating a bit, but reality isn't far away.
posted by dai at 2:56 PM on August 30, 2001

as i always say you americans are always self centered with a little work they could have put in some other cities around the world
posted by caveman at 3:35 PM on August 30, 2001

as i always say you americans are always self centered with a little work they could have put in some other cities around the world
posted by caveman at 3:35 PM on August 30, 2001

as i always say you americans are always self centered with a little work they could have put in some other cities around the world
posted by caveman at 3:36 PM on August 30, 2001

as i always say

Okay, we believe you!
posted by NortonDC at 3:41 PM on August 30, 2001

Yeah, but you can't get an atmosphere or culture like NYC's in Athens, Ga. Let me think -- I go to the City Opera, Met Museum of Art, MoMA, Guggenheim, Met Opera, Carnegie Hall, Shakespeare in the Park, half-priced TKTS, free movies in Bryant Park, Central Park, Prospect Park, American Museum of Natural History... and that's just the stuff I see pretty regularly every year. Oh yes, New York is Book Country, my favorite street fair of the year. And the Village Halloween Parade, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the innumerable ethnic parades during the summer....Much of this stuff is free, or one can get major discounts if you live here and decide never to pay full price (as I have).
Being an NYU student also doesn't hurt.

Of course, if you're =sane=, you don't live in Manhattan. I live in Flushing. Much more reasonable real estate prices, and I get a nice 45-minutes subway ride to NYU. Life is great.
posted by meep at 3:51 PM on August 30, 2001

When I was at NYU, I paid about $1200 flat for a four-month lease on the 12th floor of a brand-new apartment building on Union Square, facing the park. (Carlyle III, for those in the know.)
posted by aaron at 4:15 PM on August 30, 2001

FYI--I live 15 to 20 minutes away from O'Fallon, MO. I think the only notable thing about it is that there are stoplights on the highway there.

Yes, you heard me: STOPLIGHTS ON THE HIGHWAY.

Missouri, oh how sucktastic you are. ;)
posted by lannie628 at 4:17 PM on August 30, 2001

caveman:
You CAN do cities from other countries and compare them to each other and major U.S. cities.
The link is right there on the same page.
"Want to compare Canadian or international cities? Click here"

For the record, the biggest difference I found was between owning a house in Dickinson, North Dakota and Manhattan, (NYC) New York.
It was $100,000 to $338,214.
Criminy!
posted by Grum at 4:51 PM on August 30, 2001

$300 a month in rent. Living downtown, facing a large park. I make about $20,000 a year.

Come live in fabulous Taipei, Taiwan!
posted by Poagao at 8:18 PM on August 30, 2001

Philly is a nice city to live in, much cheaper than NYC. But I still want to move to New York City or to San Francisco (at least within a half-hour of either of them). Too bad the web economy is DEAD right now, so as a web designer with 5 years of experience I can't find a single job. argh!

Cheap place to live... Richmond, VA. Boring as HELL there, but it's cheap. So if you want to retire and die, move there.
posted by kingmissile at 8:43 PM on August 30, 2001

lannie628, I don't think I've been to a state that doesn't have stoplights on a highway somewhere...
posted by mrbula at 9:44 PM on August 30, 2001

Mo Nickels:

> There is no way, for example, to meaningfully average
> the cost of living in Manhattan.

Oh, I'm sure Donald Trump doesn't live in Joes' Apartment and Joe doesn't live in a 5th Ave. penthouse (though I'll bet some of his little friends do) and you can discount the relative cost of living accordingly. I'll still bet that, keeping lifestyles as much equivalent as they can be between cheap places and expensive ones, the cost difference between the cheapest and the most expensive places is a factor of four or five.


meep:

> Yeah, but you can't get an atmosphere or culture like
> NYC's in Athens, Ga.

Right, I've smelled the atmosphere in NYC too. No, sorry, that was a cheap shot. "One can study mathematics as well in Minorca as well as in London, but one cannot study forms of life as well." But the contrast in levels of culture isn't as vast as you may think. Like most college towns, Athens has plenty of interesting things to do. The major difference is that where NYC or another first-string big city will have thirty interesting events or performances on a given evening (only one of which you can attend), a place like Athens may have only two or three really attractive things going on (only one of which you can attend.) I've visited NYC many times, staying with both Uptown and Downtown sorts of friends, and I've lived in Boston while attending Harvard. I don't feel culturally short-changed in Athens. (It helps that Athens happens to have a flourishing townie scene, being infested with Artistic People Wearing Black who have no connection to the university.)

There's also the fact that there are indoorsy people and outdoorsy people. Folks (like me) whose main pleasures are outdoorsy can indulge them much more cheaply from a base like Athens or Amherst or Chapel Hill. I'm fifteen minutes from pristine hiking/camping forest. Also I love gardening, and to afford a half-acre plot of open garden anywhere in or near NYC I'd have to have such a high-pressure job and/or high-pressure commute that I'd have no time or energy left to actually do any gardening. Haute culture is wonderful but it's only a small fraction of all there is.
posted by jfuller at 7:35 AM on August 31, 2001

Oh yeah? Well, where I live is better than where you live and I know it and you are dumb and you can't possibly realize how stupid it is to live where you live and the advantages are obvious of my choice and what you call advantages are really disadvantages and I hate you and I win and you suck and my dad can beat up your dad and I have had a harder life than you and I know more than you and I prioritize things correctly and once you realize that you can move next door to me and the world will make sense again. Nyah!
posted by daveadams at 9:40 AM on August 31, 2001

What dave said :-)
posted by jfuller at 9:49 AM on August 31, 2001

What dave said, but...

don't move stay away because there is alreay too many new people here already its eroding our quality fo life and even though I'm a transplant from elsewhere that was then and this is now it was just perfect when I arrived but now I'm here and I get to complain about all the people from elsewhere moving in and ruining everything. Neener.
posted by theMargin at 2:52 PM on August 31, 2001

jfuller: actually, i =grew up= in georgia - living in savannah for 7 years, then marietta for 5. i lived in raleigh, nc for 6 years before moving to nyc for grad school. i lived in southern suburbia from 1974 til 1996.

i had a great time culturally, enjoying local music and art in raleigh (and even better, i actually knew the musicians and artists personally!) raleigh was a great place for books. ncsu brought in great events, and if =that= was lacking i could hop over to durham or chapel hill.

i even spent one summer in bloomington, indiana, in the middle of whitebread hell but the university provided so many cultural opportunities, even in the summer, i never really noticed. i got to see some quality musicals that summer, and watched the international harp competition they hold there. the big-city-dwellers in my group complained, but now i realize its the laziness born of being able to roll out of one's home and run into three interesting things.

it's true that outdoorsy people, in general, will find nyc a living hell, esp. manhattan, but out where i live in flushing, lots of my neighbors do garden (and my husband & i are thinking of starting a garden in front of our apt. next spring... i want mint, lots of mint); as well, some =gorgeous= sites are a train ride away - i can take the lirr out on long island to it's various beauty spots, i can go upstate into the hudson river valley or the catskills, i can go up to connecticut to visit my aunt & uncle, and watch the deer eat up their tomato plants. it's all good.

i'm just saying that there's some great things about living in nyc one can't get anywhere else. i hashed it out with my husband this morning, and we pretty much agreed that nyc is the greatest city in the world (ok, you'll pretty much find lots of new yorkers who agree with this estimation. if you live here, you either love it, or you hate it and leave.) the food, the art, the music, the people, it's just fabulous. of course, there's ugly bits, and if you are repulsed by them, that's fine. we've got enough people here to continue.

but it's true. this is a very high energy place. i've gone from relatively mellow (heck, if you get too active in savannah in august, you get heat stroke. i knew some kids in school who got heat stroke from jumping rope too vigorously) to absolutely frenetic. and without cocaine, too. i amaze myself sometimes.
posted by meep at 3:12 PM on August 31, 2001