Is NYC losing its character?

[davidfcooper]

Radio interview with two of the more pessimistic contributors to The Suburbanization of New York. It is interesting to learn that in Greenpoint, a blue collar Brooklyn neighborhood bordered to the north by Queens and to the west by the East River home prices rose 65% in 2006 (yes that's in one year, not five or ten years). The guests on the program predict that eventually the Bronx and Staten Island, which so far have remained more affordable, will also become strictly white collar. A caller points out that immigrants are starting to bypass the city and move straight to the more affordable suburbs citing several NJ towns as examples. In an earlier program guitarist David Bromberg related that when he decided to return to the northeast from Chicago he found NYC unaffordable and moved to Wilmington, DE instead. I imagine quite a few New Yorkers who have to relocate for school or work will find a few years later that returning to NYC is impossible on all but the most affluent budgets.

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

BTW, I should point out that I'm *from* Wilmington DE and keep up with events there. Wilmington has become unaffordable because of all the New Yorkers moving in. :-P (So has Philly.)

I think the big problem there is *New Jersey*, which with its taxation levels, ridiculous car insurance mess, and so on, has made itself so utterly unattractive as a place to live that if you're commuting to NYC and looking for housing a couple of hours out, you may as well go beyond NJ to northeastern PA or to northern DE or to Philly, and have a lower cost of living and better quality of life.

[davidfcooper.livejournal.com]

Some of my wife's co-workers commute to lower Manhattan from Philly and the Poconos.