Hacker News Reader

> The D.C. area [...] haul out to a suburb 30 miles away [...] and metro/commuter train in.

That might as well be the end of the world. The commute from that distance can easily crack two hours; I'd have a shorter commute driving from DC to literally the capital of the confederacy (105 miles, 1.7 hours reverse commute) than I'd have driving from Dumfries, VA into DC (30 miles, 2+ hours traffic).

Source: lived/ing inside the beltway for decades until present. Also, I've made that DC-RVA drive more times than I'd care to admit, and it was less self-harm-inducing than my standard commute from inside the beltway into DC itself.

And it's been this way for a long time. In the mid-1990's I lived in Vienna, VA and my office was in Tyson's Corner just 1.5 miles away. Yet there was no way I could eat lunch at home and drive back to the office within an hour, and it was actually faster to walk to work than drive. The only bright side to that situation was that I lived a few blocks from the Orange Line (at Dunn Loring).

In 2020, would I want to be living in Vienna or Chantilly and commuting to Crystal City? No way.

Homes in decent condition and school districts are not in the $450k to $750k range, and the added time and stress cost of using a failing public transportation system should be taken into account also. In addition to that, you won’t get access to nice big parks or trails or gyms with pools and saunas.

Manhattan is great, if you’re a millionaire and can put your kids in great private schools and hire private drivers or are single and don’t mind small living quarters and can walk to work. But for those with families, I don’t see how the commute time and lack of access to uncrowded and well maintained public facilities is worth it.

It’s crazy to me that people commute for 60 to 90 min each way on unreliable public transit from NJ and CT and NY, all to give their kids a decent school district or yard. Wasting their entire Mon to Fri slaving at work in exchange for the job market and pay of NYC. Personally, if you don’t make it big (at least $250k+) in your 20s and early 30s in NYC, and you want to or already have a family, I would get out and live somewhere where I can have access to all 7 days of my week for something other than work, dinner, and sleep.

You’re only pointing out one little consequence of that bubble. It doesn’t fix the actual problem. Sure, I know people who live in Sacramento and work in Cupertino, I let you do the maths. Trust me it’s not about being an idiot who needs financial advise. Everyone is already doing that, obviously they can’t afford to pay $5000/mo on rent or to drop $1.5 on a 1bd apartment near their office. The real problem is that we are engineers, product managers, directors, etc making big money. We have to live at an hour away from places. How about the other people I mentioned in my previous message? What if Manhattan was a giant place full of office buildings with no homes, no stores, nothing but offices. Opening a Google campus in downtown San Jose is like throwing gas at a giant fire. Tech giants need to diversify their locations, starting probably with VC’s moving out of their little cocoons. People will follow them everywhere they go. They have to make the big move first.

It's not cheap and frankly speaking, it's infested with roaches, rats, and mice. Don't ever want to live in LIC or the surrounding area. It's expensive, to rent and own. you need to be making a very high 6-fig salary (180+ base) or greater to counter balance the mortgage/rent and taxes. Otherwise you'll be house poor. Plus MTA is going up in price per ride very often and the quality is going to shit.

good luck. Only the rich can afford to live in NYC and the surrounding boroughs. I used to live in Queens Village, Moves out 20+ years ago. Even in the late 90's and early 2k, queens village was becoming expensive the Neighborhood was getting worse. houses are old and they're asking too much for them, even then.. forget about today.. astronomical..

Peace

Commute time has a much greater influence on your day to day experience and happiness than things like restaurants and museums, or even salary. The median commute is 25 minutes. Going significantly above that is rarely if ever a reasonable trade.

Hahah ; actually living here and no ; it’s not cheep .

Living in NY certainly isn't cheap but two six figure earners can more than live comfortably. Hell, if your household income is greater than like 75k then you're pretty much fine -- not living the high life but no real financial worry.

From a foreigner point of view, it seems completely ridiculous that we are even debating if a couple with 1M per year can afford or not living in NYC.

This is not 1M+ per year, this is 100k+ per year. Six figures = 100k+

> two six figure earners

Since we are talking about Amazon highly paid engineers, could be 2x 200-500k.

Amazon salary cap is 160k.

Doesn’t seem true: https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Google/Facebook/Microsoft/

I think they recently increased salary cap to $180k specifically for Bay Area. It varies by location.

The link I posted shows Amazon salaries above $400k.

Sure, but I'm assuming the worst case for six figures. If your household income is $200k then even in NY you can easily afford a nice house or high-end condo/apt in a good part of town, while living in comfort with no financial worry.