Anonymous wrote:Assuming you have the money for a good life - a suitable apartment for your family, good schools, extra curriculars, vacation, etc.

No but I would love a weekend condo to visit!

Maybe.

I grew up in NYC in the 80s and I got up to so much trouble it's insane. My parents were pretty checked out, as were all my friends parents TBH, but we were going to clubs and bars in high school, getting high in the meadow after school, having sex at the apts of friends whose parents were out of town . . . it's just really hard to keep an eye on teens.

Now maybe teens these days are less naughty? My teens are -- but they live in the burbs. My kids seem so wholesome compared to the way me and my friends were. They play sports, go camping, etc. I didn't even learn to drive until I went to college! (This is not unusual for NYC kids BTW). Did I have a blast? Yes! But would I want my kids to experience what I did. Hell no.

Also, NYC is really different now. There is an insane focus on money in Manhattan. Not sure what it would look like in Brooklyn, seems annoyingly hipster-ish to me, all these posers from suburbs around the country who "escaped" and now they think they are so cool for living in Brooklyn. Doesn't feel like "real" NYers to me, so what's the point?

Nope.

NYC is fun to visit but I've never wanted to live there, even when I was a 22 year old about to graduate college and after being raised in the suburbs and in college in a small town, could not WAIT to live in a city.

I am glad I lived in cities in my 20s (London, which is amazing, and then DC). But I was ready in my 30s to head to the suburbs and I still love it here. I know, I'm boring as hell, but I do love suburban life for raising kids. Totally get that it's not everyone's jam.

Taps mic…

No.

Yes for 0-5, maybe for 6-12, and then maybe for 12-18. Yes if your DC goes there for college. And yes, it would require money not being an issue.

We do not live in NYC now, because our jobs require us to live elsewhere, but I would love to live there full time. There is an immediacy of culture that I still haven’t experienced in other areas I’ve lived in (up and down the eastern seaboard and abroad).

I think NYC would be a great place to raise young children, but a little tough for later elementary/MS//HS, when it’s just easier to have a car, yard and basement to keep kids corralled. Plus there is a shared life experience that exists among kids being bored in the suburbs, and that’s both somewhat bonding and motivating, lol.

We owned an apartment in NYC and kept it; we rent it out to help pay down the mortgage. We plan to eventually use it as a pied a terre for vacations, and for when DC hit MS/HS and might want to participate in NYC based athletic/academic camps/workshops/courses.

We hope to eventually retire there. It seems counterintuitive to think about retiring in such a HCOL area, which we certainly keep in mind when it comes to saving for that period of our lives. And if things change, then at least we will have over anticipated our expenses!

But NYC is a place where there is such a high level of culture, music, food and medical care, all in a much smaller radius than most anywhere else in the US. I also feel like if there is one city that friends/family will readily come to visit us, it will be NYC, so less chance of being isolated in our middle/old age.

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Anonymous wrote:A lot of people seem to get their ideas of nyc from movies and TV.

We live in NYC, but in a quiet corner with a lot of international neighbors and several nearby parks. Middle or upper middle class. Kids are in public school, which they love and is much more rigorous than their DC area school. The kids actually seem more innocent than in DC - our 5th grader still pretend plays with her friends in the garden area of our apartment building. They have a whole gnome village hidden in the plants. They spend hours there, and the doormen keep their secret.

The adults in NYC are not obsessed with status or what colleges they went to, unlike when we were in DC. I know what college every single person I know in DC went to, but I have no idea where our friends in nyc went to college (although a lot are international so it would be meaningless to me anyway). People do talk incessantly about real estate though. That gets old.

Also, people here keep saying at NYC is dysfunctional. When comparing NYC to DC, this is not our experience at all. DC was pretty dysfunctional, too, and not as safe as our neighborhood in NYC.

This has to be the biggest joke ever.

Nope. I live in NYC and it truly can be like this. If you’ve never lived here, you just don’t know. Visiting Times Square several times doesn’t make you familiar with NYC.

It sounds like anywhere though. I used to live in an UMC neighborhood in a rural area with a lot of doctors and engineers here on J-1 visas. The kids played in the creek. We had to do a little fanangling with school and had kind of a mix of public school and homeschool co-op.
Why deal with all of the hassle and expense of NYC to have a midwestern life?

We deal with it because in NYC we have ready access to jobs, art, music, theater, excellent healthcare, etc. that is more difficult to find in rural areas of the Midwest. Additionally, having some well-off neighbors on a J-1 visa is not the true diversity of having kids from all over the world and with variable incomes and of different religions in your kids’ school. It’s also fun to get up on a Saturday morning and wonder if you should all go walk around Central Park, or go whale watching by the Statue of Liberty, get dim sum, walk over the Brooklyn bridge and get pizza, or see if you can get cheap tickets to a broadway show. These things are more important to some people than others, which is not to say that there is a better way, but that is why we deal.

Having a baby/toddler is, I think, hard in NYC, and this is when everyone leaves. But if you stick it out, teens/tweens in NYC have so much more independence - and I don’t have to schlepp my kids around every time they have a playdate.

Compared to a rural area, yes. But in any large US city you have access to music, art, great healthcare etc. also how often with young kids are you really attending concerts, art museums etc. Nothing you listed presents a compelling argument that one should raise kids in NYC. Nothing you listed is unique to NY. Well the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn bridge but c’mon who cares.

We live in NYC with two elementary age kids - in September we went to museums/zoo three times. We saw Harry Styles, Ben Platt, Billy Joel, and Eric Clapton. We do fun stuff every weekend.

Those aren’t things you do. Those are things you are watching other people do.

No - I’ve honestly never met anyone raised in New York that I like. Not that they’re bad people, just not my people

Yes. I follow a family on IG in NYC with four kids and their life looks like fun!

new york has an energy to it that some people really enjoy and others do not. its a good interesting place to raise kids if you like the energy/various, have a manageable job hours wise, and can fully afford a nice sufficiently spacious apartment and all of the various activities and extras there without stress. its internationally diverse. public transportation is great. you can go out to a different restaurant all the time. its easy to travel to/from. there is really no other U.S. city quite like it. growing up there teaches kids independence and that the world is a large place which they are a small part of. the youth from the surrounding nyc suburbs were generally more insular and insufferable than people who grew up in the city.

I enjoy visiting New York but I have no desire to live there

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Anonymous wrote:I'm a pp who said heck yes to NY, and we're currently raising kids here even without tons of money. I 100% get that it's not for everyone. But what makes me skeptical of many of the replies is when they cite reasons that make no sense. Crime concerns from someone in Boston, or DC? NYC is safer on I think every measure. "The high buildings" -- is this from someone who has only been to Manhattan? It's like many people are responding to a parody of Manhattan in the 80s, not a living city with hundreds of different neighborhoods.

It's like saying I don't want to raise my kids in DC because I don't want to have to see the White House out my window every day. Or bc I did an internship there in my 20s and everyone was singularly focused on going into politics or becoming a senator one day. For most of you DC residents I have to assume that's just a bizarre response bc it doesn't resonate at all with your actual lived experience.

I mean, why couldn’t someone say they wouldn’t want to live in DC because they didn’t like the focus on politics when they lived there in their 20s? That seems like a reasonable criticism. That’s about the same as the PPs who said they lived in NYC and didn’t like the focus on money.

It just seems like a super specific slice of what "life in DC" is like when raising a family etc, based on a single point in time and place within the city. But fair enough point about DC- it really is a company town, in a way that you can't claim for NYC. Even if NYC is synonymous for some with Wall Street and finance, the vast majority of residents have nothing to do with either. Not the same for DC I think.

Anonymous wrote:I'm a pp who said heck yes to NY, and we're currently raising kids here even without tons of money. I 100% get that it's not for everyone. But what makes me skeptical of many of the replies is when they cite reasons that make no sense. Crime concerns from someone in Boston, or DC? NYC is safer on I think every measure. "The high buildings" -- is this from someone who has only been to Manhattan? It's like many people are responding to a parody of Manhattan in the 80s, not a living city with hundreds of different neighborhoods.

It's like saying I don't want to raise my kids in DC because I don't want to have to see the White House out my window every day. Or bc I did an internship there in my 20s and everyone was singularly focused on going into politics or becoming a senator one day. For most of you DC residents I have to assume that's just a bizarre response bc it doesn't resonate at all with your actual lived experience.

I mean, why couldn’t someone say they wouldn’t want to live in DC because they didn’t like the focus on politics when they lived there in their 20s? That seems like a reasonable criticism. That’s about the same as the PPs who said they lived in NYC and didn’t like the focus on money.

I would if I could live like my high school friend who is now loaded. Her and her husband bought a few condos and combined them to have almost 5000 square feet in a (relatively) quiet Manhattan area (her home is up for sale so I peeked). Her (4) kids go to private. Son ubers/taxis to get to his sports games. The city is their playground according to her instagram. They have a Hamptons home (of course) and vacation plenty.

I would - not for NYC but for the money that it takes to live a good life there.

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Anonymous wrote:I live in DC and certainly don't think its garbage but I do agree that a lot of the posters trashing NYC sound a wee bit jealous. NY does have an energy that you don't find anywhere else. Its certainly not for everyone, but I love it and would raise my kids there if I was wealthy.

People can just not like a place, you know? I mean a lot of Californians don’t even like flying east past the Rockies, let alone living in NYC. There are also a lot of New Yorkers who flat-out won’t leave the city let alone contemplate living in California.

It is so weird to me that people believe that dislike must secretly be jealousy. That just smacks of insecurity.

Its the vitriol about a place that they have never lived in. The vitriol is what makes these posters sound jealous.

I’m sorry, but that’s just silly insecurity on your part.

I have visited Colorado two times in my life. Both times the dryness made my skin split horribly and painfully. I didn’t like it. I’d never live there, even if I could live in the fanciest of Aspen houses. That doesn’t make me jealous of Colorado residents, it just makes me someone who doesn’t like Colorado. Claiming everyone who doesn’t like NYC is “just jealous” is kind of pathetic.

+1

If you say so.