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What do you think is the best US city to live in or near, and why?
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2026
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New York fucking city. There’s no goddamn place like it.
I’ve lived here most of my life, and I would never live anywhere else.
New York is life New York is love
I visited NYC for a week for the first time in June and loved every second of it. So much to do and see so I was never bored. Insanely walkable and filled to the brim with public transit. There were times I got on the trains just to ride them cause I don't have them where I live. If I ever move out of my garbage state, that's pretty high on my wishlist of places to live if I can find a job that pays better than my current job ($25/hr for 45-50+ hours a week) and a 1 bedroom apartment that I could afford (best ones around me are $1k/month).
The crowds kind of overwhelmed me last time I was there, but there's certainly a lot to like in terms of resources, culture, etc. No way would I be able to afford it, though.
Kinda controversial opinion, but I found living in NYC to be cheaper than living in most of America, because you don’t need a car… no car payment, no gas, no insurance goes a long way.
There is lots of ways to live cheap in the city, especially if you don’t live in Manhattan, which most people in NYC don’t
I get the feeling that when most people talk about sky-high housing costs in NYC, they're not particularly talking about Manhattan, but what do I know.
It’s true that rent is often more expensive in NYC compared to other cities, but lots of other stuff is a lot cheaper, especially if you know where to look. Plus, you don’t have to own a car and pay for gas and insurance and stuff like that. So that’s a big cost savings right there.
I'm paying well under $1K for a single bedroom in a pretty nice area, in a major Midwestern city. Public transport is literally at my doorstep. What might the equivalent cost be in a non-Manhattan NYC area?
Probably twice that, but you’d also be in New York City. Which means your job would probably pay a lot more. But maybe not.
If that major Midwestern city happens to be, say, Minneapolis or Chicago, I might consider staying put. Minneapolis is a pretty cool city. and so is Chicago, although, personally, I’d take NYC over Chicago.
But the value in living in NYC is the city itself. You’re very rarely at home, because you’re out and about enjoying the city, taking advantage of so much of what it has to offer, most of which is free or cheap. And there are so many people to enjoy it with! Another major benefit about NYC is the sense of community with the people who live there. Contrary to popular belief, New Yorkers are pretty nice people. ( for the most part)
Yeah I'm middle-aged and significantly disabled, so it was always just a theoretical. Not that I'm not jealous of everything NYC has to offer. This direct area could certainly use more interesting stores and a good pizza-by-the slice shop!
Thanks for the replies, and have a good 'un!
You’d be surprised at how incredibly accommodating NYC could be to a disabled person. Visiting there and everything you see in here on TV movies is extremely full of misinformation. Absolutely living there is an entirely different experience.
I meant the affordability issue, in case that wasn't clear. It's not an issue of me getting paid more for the work I do, because I'm not working anymore, and am on a fixed income that's probably going to be crippled anyway by Fed cuts under the Orange administration.
Please chill with the sales pitch, buddy. I'm not moving to NYC.
Affordability is an issue everywhere, not just in NYC. And it’s not a “sales pitch,” either. Any city in the country, there are probably more and better safety nets for someone who has lost work and is on disability in New York City than anywhere else. That’s what I was trying to say, if you’re preconceptions fed by huge amounts of misinformation hadn’t led you to think otherwise…
If I were gonna be poor, anywhere, I’d wanna be poor in New York City. Because it’s a city that you can always rely on to take care of you a lot better than any other place in the United States. and you’d only really know that if you’d actually lived there for any period of time.
You know how I know that? Because I’ve been poor living in a lot of different cities in this country, and my life living as a poor person in New York City was orders of magnitude better than it could ever be anywhere else in this country. That’s a big part of why I love it so much.
You can get studio apartments in the Bronx for cheaper than most cities in the USA. People don’t believe me, but NYC is way cheaper than Seattle or SF in terms of housing & groceries