Friday, October 3, 2008

How the Rust Belt trumps NYC

New York Magazine has an article about why some are quitting New York City for Buffalo. The writing is insufferable -- pompous, meandering, NYC navel gazing -- but the article finally gets to a great point:

This, ironically, has always been the siren song of New York City: the chance to turn yourself into someone new, to live the life you’ve always imagined. But what a city like Buffalo offers is a very different promise of what could be. It offers the chance to live on the cheap and start a nonprofit organization, or rent an abandoned church for $1,000 a month, or finish your album without having to hold down two temp jobs at the same time, or simply have more space and a better view and enough money left over each month to buy yourself a painting once in awhile. A city like Buffalo reminds you that, beyond New York, there are still frontiers.
New York is not a frontier, but Buffalo is, and so is Detroit. In most respects the Rust Belt cities are no match for NYC, the consummate global city, but what they do have is cheap space, open land, fiercely loyal communities, and an unparalleled opportunity to build your dreams.

1 comment:

Cooper said...

I was going to write that Detroit offers unparalleled opportunity limited only by one's imagination and drive, but for the sake of realism I should add political corruption, a crumbling infrastructure, and a deeply recessionary local economy to the list of limiting factors (among others).

But that's no excuse not to live, work, and dream!