Reason 267 Why We’re Plotting A Move Back To NYC

~ Laura

According to this New York Magazine article, New Yorkers are living longer than other Americans. Yep. They walk fast. They don’t drive. They go the park. It’s easier to find like-minded people. There are better hospitals. More organic food. More cultural stimulation.

When I lived in the city, I smoked and drank. I saved money by living on egg and bacon sandwiches. But if I can counter balance the smokes and the bacon with a lot of fast walking, we’re moving back. Now.

Published by Laura

7 thoughts on “Reason 267 Why We’re Plotting A Move Back To NYC”

  1. Hmmm. I didn’t read the whole thing, but at least part of the story has to be that NYC has become more of a place where rich people are happy to live.

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  2. Yeah, that’s a big part of it. Towards the end of the article they have an interesting bit about the Bronx, which hasn’ had much gentrification and how it is bringing down the numbers. They say that the poor Bronx are unhealthy, that fat people are coming into the hospitals with their fat kids and complaining to the doctors that their kids are too thin. They ask for pills to bulk up the kids. The doctors believe that these people are so isolated that they have begun to see their unhealthy ways are normal. Regular thin people look sickly to them. So, the Bronx does bring down the average in the city.
    The exercise bit is totally true. I used to have abs of steel and to be effortlessly thin. I moved out here, because I had a 40 minute walk to my kids nursery school and had a four flight walk up in the city. Now, I have to spend 40 minutes in the gym to keep my ass from growing.

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  3. I have always been frustrated where we live at how difficult it is to walk for transportation even when you want to. I used to walk the four miles home from work, which is a pleasant distance, but there was a half-mile of road with no sidewalk and no shoulder. Somehow risking death by automobile every day did not seem the healthier choice.
    Cities dealing with urban sprawl constantly have this problem – there are few sidewalks, and the intersections are not designed to be crossed on foot.

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  4. That bit about the aesthetic qualities of the urban environment being an inducement to walk is interesting. I’ve read a lot about walkability factors, but not many people seem to focus on how people’s walking paths look. And yet it seems so obvious when you think about it: fugly streets and buildings make people go elsewhere.

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  5. I moved to NC from Queens NY about 7 years ago and absolutely hate it here. The people are slow, the reaction time is like watching paint dry and people are not friendly. Talk about Southern Hospitality-NOT. There’s no culture here and when you go out downtown you run into the same old hill-billies you saw in the gym the night before-UGGHH The slow death of me. I don’t have the money to move back to NYC and my husband is a REAL Southerner so what should I do? Die in NC??? HELP!

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  6. I still miss NC. There isn’t no culture, just very little culture so it is much easier to avoid than other places. And you can buy beer and wine in the grocery stores. Life was much easier, excepting the spring ‘sneeze every 30 seconds for a week and half’ season.

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