Alter S. Reiss (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dhole) wrote in hnpcc, |
Whether or not people mean to include the outer boroughs when they say "New York City" will depend whether or not they grew up in Manhattan; I did, so I tend to be less than careful about including them as part of the city, which they are. Mostly. They've got the same mayor, and pay the same rather high taxes and such, but especially for the outer boroughs, they're not actually any more convenient to jobs in midtown than living out in New Jersey suburbs like Hoboken or Jersey City or what have you.
And the prices reflect that -- you can get somewhere out in Flushing, say, for $1400 a month, maybe, but if you're looking in Park Slope, it's going to be as expensive as somewhere in Upper Manhattan. In theory, there are places in that range in some of the less affluent sections of Manhattan as well, but those are usually on the upper floors of non-elevator buildings, which is hard to manage with kids.
The median income for Manhattan is a bit misleading; the last time I looked at it, it was a sort of bimodal distribution -- a lot of people over $150k, and a lot under $15k. If you're making less than 50k, there's several varieties of government housing available, ranging from housing projects to below market rate apartments in new buildings. The less you make, the likelier you are to get that sort of thing.
The closest thing a casual google turns up to a cite for this sort of thing is a slightly dated bit from the New York Times; the relevant quote being:
In the 75k range, there are a few neighborhoods in Manhattan which would be doable -- parts of Harlem, Inwood, and Washington Heights, but it'd be hard to manage that with multiple kids, and the public schools are going to be a bit scary. The more gentrified parts of the outer boroughs are similarly just on the edge of reasonable, and in the more suburban parts, 75k will keep your head over water, but you aren't going to be saving that much. New Jersey is probably the better option; taxes are lower, and food is cheaper.
(Do I think that bank executives should be earning less than $100k a year? Yeah, pretty much. Will that mean they have to move out of NYC? Yeah, pretty much, if they want to send their kids to any sort of private school.)
And the prices reflect that -- you can get somewhere out in Flushing, say, for $1400 a month, maybe, but if you're looking in Park Slope, it's going to be as expensive as somewhere in Upper Manhattan. In theory, there are places in that range in some of the less affluent sections of Manhattan as well, but those are usually on the upper floors of non-elevator buildings, which is hard to manage with kids.
The median income for Manhattan is a bit misleading; the last time I looked at it, it was a sort of bimodal distribution -- a lot of people over $150k, and a lot under $15k. If you're making less than 50k, there's several varieties of government housing available, ranging from housing projects to below market rate apartments in new buildings. The less you make, the likelier you are to get that sort of thing.
The closest thing a casual google turns up to a cite for this sort of thing is a slightly dated bit from the New York Times; the relevant quote being:
The top fifth of earners in Manhattan now make 52 times what the lowest fifth make - $365,826 compared with $7,047 - which is roughly comparable to the income disparity in Namibia, according to the Times analysis of 2000 census data. Put another way, for every dollar made by households in the top fifth of Manhattan earners, households in the bottom fifth made about 2 cents.
In the 75k range, there are a few neighborhoods in Manhattan which would be doable -- parts of Harlem, Inwood, and Washington Heights, but it'd be hard to manage that with multiple kids, and the public schools are going to be a bit scary. The more gentrified parts of the outer boroughs are similarly just on the edge of reasonable, and in the more suburban parts, 75k will keep your head over water, but you aren't going to be saving that much. New Jersey is probably the better option; taxes are lower, and food is cheaper.
(Do I think that bank executives should be earning less than $100k a year? Yeah, pretty much. Will that mean they have to move out of NYC? Yeah, pretty much, if they want to send their kids to any sort of private school.)
