How Bad Is It Living In New York?

New York certainly has its problems, and I write frequently write about many of them.  But is it really awful living here?

I believe in keeping these things in perspective.  New York is actually a pretty great place to live, at least for now.  The problem is that we have a class of idiotic politicians (and voters who put them in office) who pursue obviously destructive policies that make things much worse than they could be.  However, rather than an imminent collapse, what we face is an ongoing slow relative decline compared to other parts of the country that follow more sensible policies.  The problem is not really that things are so bad, but that they could be so much better with so little effort.  It is a tremendous missed opportunity.  I remain optimistic that things can be turned around, although that could take a long time.

A few days ago, on my post here about a new line of attack against New York’s rent regulation regime, commenter John Galt III set out a litany of reputed horrors about life in New York City.  The comment began, “So living in NYC is bad,” and proceeded from there.  Galt’s litany includes many items that are in the nature of impressions you could easily get from reading the press without seeking out context.  So, with the intent of keeping things in perspective, I thought I would respond to some of Galt’s points.  I’ll put them in categories.