NYC's minimum for "middle-class" a six-figure income

[Heracles 417]

Unions are a good reason why NYC is so expensive.

I always found the belief that it is the best city in the world funny. Which usually comes from the mouth of a lot of people who have never been let alone lived in any other cities in the world. For me personally while NYC is exciting and quite happening, it is also dull, rundown and needs a maaaaaaaaajor renovation. Get over the early 1900's. There are many cities around the world which are 1,000 times more aesthetically appealing than NYC. Definitely more modern, innovative and cleaner. I have seen better roads in India than half the roads coming in and out of NYC. So many cities now have high speed METRO services yet NYC still runs on the archaic subway system.

What is the deal with old rundown buildings anyway? I would have thought NYC would have brand new state-of-the-art (GREEN) skyscrapers by now. Though, I am sure some group at some time or another 'complained' about growth. Hence why very little has been built.

Edited February 9, 2009 by Aficionado

[Amby 490]

if you want to pass up middle class and be rich, read the wall street journal

Edited February 9, 2009 by Amby

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

if you want to pass up middle class and be rich, read the wall street journal

So that's what I've been doing wrong... I've been reading the Voice

[almaty 19]

the Voice is for preppie geek want a be

[chri'stina 190]

the Voice is for preppie geek want a be

Ooh you going to take that AJ?

[Amby 490]

if you want to pass up middle class and be rich, read the wall street journal

So that's what I've been doing wrong... I've been reading the Voice

if all the rich people are reading the journal, obviously the first step to becoming rich is reading the journal

then you have to hang with rich people and do what the rich people do. the journal is the first step

[chri'stina 190]

I'm sure every single person who reads the Wall St Journal is rich.

[Amby 490]

I'm sure every single person who reads the Wall St Journal is rich.

it's the first step to becoming rich

you gonna hang with poor people who can't manage their money and sit around and talk about how much money you have? poor people who have no money sit around and talk about being poor, not what they can to to get more money. i'm telling you read the journal. it's the first step to financial success.

[chri'stina 190]

I'm sure every single person who reads the Wall St Journal is rich.

it's the first step to becoming rich

you gonna hang with poor people who can't manage their money and sit around and talk about how much money you have? poor people who have no money sit around and talk about being poor, not what they can to to get more money. i'm telling you read the journal. it's the first step to financial success.

Is that how you personally got rich? Or anyone you know?

[Amby 490]

I'm sure every single person who reads the Wall St Journal is rich.

it's the first step to becoming rich

you gonna hang with poor people who can't manage their money and sit around and talk about how much money you have? poor people who have no money sit around and talk about being poor, not what they can to to get more money. i'm telling you read the journal. it's the first step to financial success.

Is that how you personally got rich? Or anyone you know?

I know someone who sat around and read the journal. learned some stuff. hung with the journal readers. learned some more stuff. now worth millions.

[chri'stina 190]

I'm sure every single person who reads the Wall St Journal is rich.

it's the first step to becoming rich

you gonna hang with poor people who can't manage their money and sit around and talk about how much money you have? poor people who have no money sit around and talk about being poor, not what they can to to get more money. i'm telling you read the journal. it's the first step to financial success.

Is that how you personally got rich? Or anyone you know?

I know someone who sat around and read the journal. learned some stuff. hung with the journal readers. learned some more stuff. now worth millions.

I will start reading the journal tomorrow, and will be worth millions too soon then. If not, I am coming back for my money back guarantee. (I saw that guarantee fine print under your posts).

[LaL 418]

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

The actual study by the Center for an Urban Future can be found here. It's an interesting read, I highly recommend it.

Here's an excerpt, about immigrants:

DETOUR FROM THE DREAM

Successful immigrants are leaving New York to take their shot at the middle class in other regions where buying a home and raising a family is easier to attain

New York City continues to serve as one of the nation’s leading gateway cities for new immigrants. Anecdotal evidence suggests, however, that growing numbers of immigrants who have enjoyed a measure of success in New York are moving to North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and other states where the cost of living is significantly lower—and where they stand a better chance to achieve middle class goals like owning a home and saving money to send their children to college.

A number of community leaders and immigrant advocates interviewed for this report told us that there has been a

noticeable increase in immigrants leaving the New York region entirely. Meanwhile, officials in cities like Charlotte, NC

say the influx of New York’s immigrants is evident.

Tom Hanchett, an urban historian who works for a museum in Charlotte called the Museum of the New South, has

been working on a research project about the immigrants who are coming to Charlotte. “New York is the largest donor state to the Charlotte region,” he says. Recent cutbacks on Wall Street could well accelerate this migration.102

Experts in New York say there are two principal reasons why the city’s newcomers are relocating: First, the city’s astronomical housing costs make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for many of them to realize their aspirations of home ownership. High commercial rents also make it more difficult to build a significant business.

Second, new migration patterns have created a critical mass of ethnic communities in cities that have traditionally

had very little diversity. With more people who speak their language, stores that sell the products they want and houses of worship serving their faith, immigrants now feel comfortable making the move.

“In other places, especially in the South, they can put $10,000 together and get a mortgage for a new house. That’s

something most Hispanic immigrants can’t even dream of doing in New York City.” says Eduardo Giraldo, an insurance broker based in Jackson Heights and past president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Queens. “Some are saying they’re making more money down there, but even when they don’t, they can buy more with the money they do make.”

ShaKerra Samuels, who was born in Jamaica but grew up in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, is one case in point. After she graduated from college in 2002, Samuels accepted a job with Bank of America in Jacksonville, Florida that paid roughly half the salary of a similar job in New York. Still, she thinks she has come out ahead in the long run. A year after moving to Florida, she bought a three bedroom house for $150,000, which, she claims, she could never do in New York. Samuels says she misses New York a lot, especially the shopping. But she got married in June 2007, and whenever she thinks about the challenge of raising a family in the city she still regards as home, the nostalgia slowly disappears.

Some New York-based immigrants aren’t just being driven away by the city’s high cost of living. Many business

owners are being lured away by the market opportunities of newer, less established immigrant communities. According to Elizabeth Perdomo, former program director for the Queens Economic Development Corporation, New York-based immigrant entrepreneurs can take the businesses they built under intense market pressures in Jackson Heights and really make them flourish in the newer immigrant neighborhoods of big southern cities like Charlotte, where there is less competition and a growing demand. This is particularly true for the owners of multi-services businesses, which provide translation and tax filing help, among other things, to newly arrived immigrants.

Eligio Pena moved the supermarket chain he founded in Queens to Raleigh, NC in 2000 and then again to Charlotte in

2003. Pena says the growing immigrant populations in many cities in the South have opened up a profitable market for entrepreneurs like him. As an example, he observes that in Charlotte the local supermarket chain Winn-Dixie hasn’t figured out how to cater to the different needs of local ethnic neighborhoods, which is a marketing strategy he puts at the very center of his business model.

Ultimately, however, Pena says that immigrants are moving from large northeastern cities to places in the South for the same reasons as non-immigrants. “In North Carolina, you can afford a bigger house with a bathroom attached to every bedroom,” he explains.

[ginger1981 0]

I'm sure every single person who reads the Wall St Journal is rich.

it's the first step to becoming rich

you gonna hang with poor people who can't manage their money and sit around and talk about how much money you have? poor people who have no money sit around and talk about being poor, not what they can to to get more money. i'm telling you read the journal. it's the first step to financial success.

Is that how you personally got rich? Or anyone you know?

I know someone who sat around and read the journal. learned some stuff. hung with the journal readers. learned some more stuff. now worth millions.

I guess you must not read the WJS! It would be a good way to get out of the parent's basement

[Amby 490]

I'm sure every single person who reads the Wall St Journal is rich.

it's the first step to becoming rich

you gonna hang with poor people who can't manage their money and sit around and talk about how much money you have? poor people who have no money sit around and talk about being poor, not what they can to to get more money. i'm telling you read the journal. it's the first step to financial success.

Is that how you personally got rich? Or anyone you know?

I know someone who sat around and read the journal. learned some stuff. hung with the journal readers. learned some more stuff. now worth millions.

I guess you must not read the WJS! It would be a good way to get out of the parent's basement

it would be unacceptable for me to live at home if i was no longer in college but i'm in college so it doesn't matter

btw...guest house and basement are two very different things. basement = basement...guesthouse = a completely different house on the same property

Edited February 9, 2009 by Amby