Thinking about the big news article last night about the unhappiest city in the US (NewYorkCity) I went trolling this morning, and found this, from an article in NY Magazine from earlier this summer - Living in New York may be more expensive than ever, but let’s face it, it’s always been hard. That, oddly, is part of its appeal. You test yourself against the stresses of the city. If it’s not the expense, it’s the overcrowding. If not the overcrowding, then the crime. If not the crime, then the tension, or the roaches, or the smells, or the guy screaming obscenities at you for no reason on the stifling subway platform while you wait for a train that’s jam-packed and twenty minutes late. So people talk idly of leaving. They talk of Portland, or Berlin, or Toronto. (Okay, I talk of Toronto.) Or they secretly hold on to their own personal Buffalo: a hometown they occasionally investigate, just to check in on housing prices. They imagine new lives for themselves in a kinder, cheaper, easier, more manageable mini–New York. A place that’s cosmopolitan but not nearly as crowded. A city with a few good, if not world-class, restaurants. And maybe some extra alluring touch that’s peculiar to their tastes: an intriguing arts scene that’s just under the radar, or easy access to tall trees and open air, or the promise of a backyard that’s bigger than a Twister board. But the problem is, you can’t simply leave New York—you have to quit New York. You have to admit to yourself and the world that you’re packing it in, calling it a day, turning out the lights. You have to walk away from, as Joan Didion put it, “the sense, so peculiar to New York, that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month.” (It should be noted she wrote that in an essay about her decision to leave New York.)
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 11:42:33 +0000
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