8 reasons the city beats the suburbs

in nyc, you can definitely save more the $500K in mortgage by moving to the burbs. consider a 1200 sq ft apartment in prime manhattan at $1.2M+ and a 1600 sq ft house in the burbs and $700K.

they also forgot to account for the cost of living in the city vs burbs. i found that it was sometimes cheaper to go to an inexpensive restaurant then to buy chicken breast at $7 per lbs and make it myself.

You are preaching to the choir here. This is not exactly the place for an even debate of this subject.

However, the article is poorly written and all of these points are very bad ones which most people in the burbs solve easily. Most gardeners plow driveways, or people charge $20 for the driveway, not $40 per hour! Who mows their own lawn? I know people who drive to work form the burbs in <30 min, and people who take 2 trains and a bus from Brooklyn in ~50 minutes...

and ab_11218, If you are comparing prime Manhattan, be fair. $1.2MM would get you ~2500-3500SF in a prime suburb. Are there the inexpensive restaurants you speak of the ones in the city or the burbs? and is the price of chicken different?

i was trying to compare like space for like space, so a 1200 sqft apt in city would be similar to a 1600 sqft house in burbs.

when i moved to Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill are more than 10 yrs ago, they were charging $6 per lbs for chicken breast. by the time you add the seasoning, cooking, sides, etc, it made more sense to go to an inexpensive restaurant and order the meal for $10 or so. in the burbs, similar chicken breast was $2 per lbs. and no, it was not organic.

"No outages". "No floods."

Tell that to everyone south of 34th Street who had no power for five days last October, and the only water they saw was that which rushed their ground floor apartments.

Agreed, Sandy was an aberration. And personally, I'll take the city any day over the suburbs. But anybody who etches "absolutes" in stone is looking to be proven wrong!

"i was trying to compare like space for like space, so a 1200 sqft apt in city would be similar to a 1600 sqft house in burbs." Like spaces would be LIKE, though, huh? not 33% oversized

The city is full of crazies and Undesirable Types. Who would want to live with all that crime and filth? In the suburbs you get a backyard and you can wash your car in your own driveway instead of the street. You can Barbie Queue frozen hamburger patties whenever you want. You can do a big Christmas light display.

You gotta be crazy to live in the city. Or an Undesirable Type.

"I know people who drive to work form the burbs in <30 min"

1st ring suburbia eastern (think eastern Bergen County ala Tenafly/Alpine/Englewodd Cliffs where relative shacks can go for $1mm) are entirely different than typical suburb outlaid in article.. akin to WV/HK different to expereince in Wash Heights..

What about NYC income tax? Depending on your income, can be a good chunck of change.

The author should have specified "Eight Reasons Why BOSTON Beats the Suburbs".

The plusses and minuses vary from city to city.

Try telling a New Yorker he doesn't have a "commute" to work. LOLOL!!! It's a rarified few who are lucky enough in this city to be able to live within walking distance of their place of work.

"It's a rarified few who are lucky enough in this city to be able to live within walking distance of their place of work."

... Shirley you're joking, Matthew. For Midtown workplaces alone, the entirety of the UWS, the UES/Yorkville, the Greater Sutton/Beekman zone, Hell's Kitchen and its pantry, and the giant agglomeration that's now considered Chelsea are walkable to work. I'd throw in the Villages on a nice day, and the whole Murray/Turtle/Gramercy mess as well.

Fort George: at least it's commutable.

If it is so walkable, why do so few people actually walk it?

i prefer a 9 minute cab

Everything said in that article is true of NYC as well. The article said walk to work or take the subway. Same here in NYC.

The problem is the title of this post. Living in the City certainly has many advantages, but also comes with some disadvantages. It really depends on your priorities. The title may give people the impression that this is the conclusion for everyone. May be that is how the so called journalists get their attentions.

"Shirley you're joking, Matthew. For Midtown workplaces alone, the entirety of the UWS, the UES/Yorkville, the Greater Sutton/Beekman zone, Hell's Kitchen and its pantry, and the giant agglomeration that's now considered Chelsea are walkable to work."

Depends on WHERE you work, and what you consider "walkable".

Yorkville is NOT "walkable" to a job on 20th and Ninth. Nor is 86th and West End "walkable" to 25th and First. Oh sure, any reasonably healthy person COULD walk it ... but most of us didn't move to Manhattan to take 2 hours to get to and from work.

Under what circumstance would someone living in Yorkville have a job on 20th Street and 9th Avenue? Even more crazy, why would someone on 86th and West End be working on 25th and First at the pizza joint or nail salon?

In Matthew's defense, I have to admit that I go wherever the money's good. I just take a bath afterwards and I'm clean as a whistle again.