Cost of living adjusted, NYC poorest city in America? • Hacker News Board

Re: Cost of living adjusted, NYC poorest city in America?

#11

Post by krschultz » Fri, Aug 07, 2009, 6:18 PM UTC

spolsky wrote: post #7

CoLA figures for New York are B.S. They're all based on buying an identical basket of goods. New Yorkers don't buy the same goods. 54% of New Yorkers don't have cars, because we have good mass transit. New Yorkers live in smaller apartments and don't have gardens, because we usually opt for walkability and nearby culture and entertainment instead of square footage. If you want the square footage instead of the walkab…

54%? I don't know anyone here who owns a car!

It is damn expensive to rent, but once you subtract out car payments, car insurance, car maintenance, and gas you can save $1000 a month easily that goes towards rent.

Getting around NYC costs $89 a month.

Re: Cost of living adjusted, NYC poorest city in America?

#12

Post by spolsky » Fri, Aug 07, 2009, 6:22 PM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #11

spolsky wrote: post #7

CoLA figures for New York are B.S. They're all based on buying an identical basket of goods. New Yorkers don't buy the same goods. 54% of New Yorkers don't have cars, because we have good mass transit. New Yorkers live in smaller apartments and don't have gardens, because we usually opt for walkability and nearby culture and entertainment instead of square footage. If you want the square footage instead of the walkab…

54%? I don't know anyone here who owns a car! It is damn expensive to rent, but once you subtract out car payments, car insurance, car maintenance, and gas you can save $1000 a month easily that goes towards rent. Getting around NYC costs $89 a month.

Don't forget that includes queens, staten island, etc, where people actually have a car or two.

$1000/month in car payments = $2000/month in pretax salary. That means a $60,000 salary in NY goes as far as an $84,000 salary - car costs.

Re: Cost of living adjusted, NYC poorest city in America?

#13

Post by anamax » Fri, Aug 07, 2009, 6:54 PM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #11

spolsky wrote: post #7

CoLA figures for New York are B.S. They're all based on buying an identical basket of goods. New Yorkers don't buy the same goods. 54% of New Yorkers don't have cars, because we have good mass transit. New Yorkers live in smaller apartments and don't have gardens, because we usually opt for walkability and nearby culture and entertainment instead of square footage. If you want the square footage instead of the walkab…

54%? I don't know anyone here who owns a car! It is damn expensive to rent, but once you subtract out car payments, car insurance, car maintenance, and gas you can save $1000 a month easily that goes towards rent. Getting around NYC costs $89 a month.

$1000/month for a car?

I wasn't spending anywhere near that when I was making payments and now that the car is paid for, I'm spending even less.

Of course, my car isn't in NYC, but if NYC is causing cars to be expensive, that's on NYC, not cars.