Leaving New York For A Different City

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now for our final segment today, we're going to make that segue from Lydia, who lived in New York and then moved to Tucson, to a call-in for anybody who's left New York City for another city. Especially at any point during the last two and a half years of the pandemic, when a lot of people have moved, but really, at any time in your life. If you've left New York City, not for the suburbs, but for another city, call up and compare and contrast. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

If you used to live in New York and you now live in Philadelphia, how would you compare the two? If you used to live in New York and you now live in Miami, how would you compare the two? If you used to live in New York and you now live in Tucson like Lydia Millet, call up and continue that conversation. It can be international too. If you used to live in New York and you now live in Tokyo, compare and contrast. If you used to live in New York and you now live in London, call up and tell us what the difference is between those two capitals of the world besides which side of the street people drive on.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Census data gives us a little bit of a clue as to where New Yorkers tend to go, at least during the pandemic. Let's see. According to a data journalism website called Stacker that listed the cities that welcomed the most ex-New Yorkers between 2015 and 2019, the top five metro regions according to that list were Philadelphia, Miami, DC, LA, and Boston. Maybe you're finding Philly has better sandwiches, as somebody said to me the other day than New York. DC's free museums might be helping that city tip the scales for you over New York.

If you move to LA, well, maybe you just like the weather. Miami was ranked the third-best food city in America just the other day in a list from the website WalletHub that got written up in a number of publications. WalletHub, by the way, puts Portland, Oregon and Orlando at number one and two as food cities. New York, believe it or not, only came in at number 18 just behind the other Portland, Portland, Maine. How's the food in the city you moved to from the Big Apple? 212-433-WNYC if you want to talk about that aspect. How about quality of life overall?

Does it feel safer, quieter, cleaner, worse in some ways that New Yorkers don't even think about until you move there and you have to deal with it? Anybody moved to Barcelona with its pedestrian first super blocks and car-free zones that it's becoming known for in transportation alternatives kinds of circles? 212-433-WNYC. Ex-New Yorkers, your dispatches from the cities that you now call home. 212-433-9692 or tweet your 280-character comparisons and we'll take your calls and tweets right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now your chance to compare and contrast the city that you now live in to New York if you used to live here. 212-433-WNYC. Jessica in Seattle, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jessica. Thanks for calling in.

Jessica: Hi, Brian. So excited to be on the call with you. I am out here in Seattle. I'm born and raised in Queens, New York. I miss you so much. I used to listen to you when I went to work and I would just listen to it in my office while I was working. This is awesome. I moved out four years ago with my family. I have two kids. I do affordable housing. I used to work for the City of New York and now I work for the City of Seattle. Professionally, this was a breath of fresh air. I really appreciate really getting into the weeds of affordable housing and really thinking about equity issues in a really different way.

I think in such a large city like New York, you really don't have the capacity to do that. Also, I'm an urban planner, so I do think about roads, I think about schools, and the intersectionality of all that work. Seattle just provides a really--

Brian Lehrer: Help us. Help your hometown, Jessica. What are you learning about affordable housing in Seattle that we desperately might need to apply here?

Jessica: My whole thing is that we criminalize homelessness in New York. I say 'we' because I'm born and raised there. You can't just take it out of me. It hurts me to think that mental health and substance abuse is criminalized the way we do it in New York. Also, I think that the ability to think about the diversity of where we place our housing and the types of land that we can acquire as the City of New York. It's a very tough discussion, but who develops those lands? Affordable not-for-profit and community land trusts are not as maybe done with such an eye on equity as it is in Seattle.

I think that's what I struggled with a lot in New York, even though I loved it. I really loved working in the City of New York. It was my home. I thought I was going to be there forever and then it didn't happen. I moved out here for a better quality of life, I would say, I think. I have a backyard, I have the capacity to get anywhere in 15 minutes. People in Seattle complain about traffic and it can't compare.

Brian Lehrer: Coming from New York it makes you giggle.

Jessica: Yes, totally. You can't complain about--

Brian Lehrer: Jessica, thank you so much for starting off this conversation and we can get some other folks on. I realized you called-- it's only 8:50 in the morning out there and you called us up. Thank you so much and call again. Keep calling, keep listening. Virginia in Mexico City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Virginia.

Virginia: Hi, Brian. I'm so happy to finally get connected. I moved out of Bushwick, Brooklyn. I've been living in Mexico City for about a year now. I think that definitely Mexico City is comparable to New York because of the diversity. It's also a major city. The one thing I do miss is two-hour Amazon delivery though. I will say that. I would say in terms of food, culture, it has everything that a person who lives in New York would want. Very easy to get around. It's amazing.

Brian Lehrer: Virginia, thank you very much. Gabriel in Los Angeles, you're on WNYC. Hi, Gabriel.

Gabriel: Hey, Brian. How are you doing?

Brian Lehrer: All right. It's early for you. Oh, I see. You're calling us from Georgia right now, but you live in LA. You moved from New York to LA.

Gabriel: I moved from New York to LA. I had spent 34 years living on the Upper West Side and went to public school my whole life. After just trying to tooth and nail it, I ended up having to leave during the pandemic. The reality is, I chose LA because for the past 10 to 15 years, it's way more New York than New York has been, has turned out to be.

Brian Lehrer: What does that mean, it's way more New York than New York?

Gabriel: The architecture is older. There's weirder stuff on the street. It's cheaper. The food is way cooler. Internet media has taken over New York City in a way that has almost turned into a feedback loop and turned the city into a gigantic expensive brunch that only certain people can afford. It's unfortunate, but LA has a lot of the hallmarks of the New York that I grew up with and feel familiar with including a lot of New Yorkers. I feel like I have more New Yorkers in my Rolodex who live in LA than live in New York right now.

Brian Lehrer: That's really interesting. I know that one thing that I've noticed as I've been in different places around the country is that you meet two kinds of people. You meet people from wherever you are and the New Yorkers who moved there. That's because there are just so many of us. Gabriel, thank you for that comparison. Now interestingly, I think Eddie also calling from Los Angeles is not seeing the comparison as positively as Gabriel did. Eddie, you're on WNYC. Thanks for calling.

Eddie: Hi. Good morning, Brian. I agree with quite a lot of the things that Gabriel said. One of the things that I was saying to your screener is while I moved out here in 2019, my wife joined me a year later just ahead of the pandemic in 2020. One of the things that we would say right from the beginning is moving to LA is social distancing anyway. You just don't have that degree of interaction in the streets and the public transportation and so on and so forth.

That turned out to be somewhat positive for us under those circumstances but long-term or longer-term for me after 22 years in the Lower East Side and for my wife born and bred in Forest Hills. Moving here has got a whole lot of differences that aren't as great in the sense that you just don't have that sense of spontaneity that you have in New York where you walk out of your apartment, you walk around your neighborhood. You run into people you know. You make social arrangements just on the spur of the moment. "I'll see you there in an hour," or, "I'll see you there after work," or whatever.

Here, you make a plan with somebody a month ahead. It's an hour to get there, an hour to get back and half the time people cancel an hour beforehand anyway. That's very much a part of LA but I've had these positives during the early days of the pandemic. Yes, the weather's great and all of that. There is definitely that's the biggest thing that I miss is the spontaneity and feeling like I'm really in connection with my friends. Gabriel's right, there's a hell of a lot of New Yorkers out here now and there is a lot of creativity and emerging stuff. Not really bad.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting, I hear you about the centrality of the lack of public transportation relative to New York in defining culture. Eddie, thank you very much for your call. A couple of tweets that are coming in. Let's see. One person writes, "Left New York City for Stuttgart, Germany in 2014 for family. Quality of life is overall better but it's much smaller and feels like living in a neighborhood of New York. Been trying to write about Germany/US for a while now especially from my perspective as a black man."

Let's say another tweet, "Left New York City for Toronto. Food and Transit Better in New York City but socialized medicine worth making the change for opened up career possibilities." It's that listener who moved to Toronto. Here's Heather calling from Piedmont, Alabama. You're on WNYC. Hi Heather.

Heather: Hi. I'm a huge fan. I cannot believe I'm actually talking to you but I moved from New York in 2020 to back home to Alabama. Largely because I just like many of the other callers got burned out on what it takes to live there. I was 25 years as a teacher. I also left New York with a lot of skills and thought I would come back home and try to put some of those skills to use. Alabama has an incredible opportunity to be a state that is leading in ecotourism. I just wanted to get in on the ground floor on something and it just seems there aren't any more ground floors in New York. It's nothing compared to New York.

Brian Lehrer: Did you say Alabama is a leading state for ecotourism?

Heather: It is undeveloped and so there's lots of amazing opportunities that are just sitting here waiting for people to come and help develop. I just felt like I wanted to get out on the ground floor on something and I-

Brian Lehrer: Do you get a lot of--

Heather: -didn't feel like I was ever going to be able.

Brian Lehrer: Do you get a lot of people skeptical of you suspicious of you for being a Northerner who wants to impose her liberal values or anything like that?

Heather: Yes, completely. A lot of people who assume that I'm happy to be back here, which in some ways I am, in some ways I'm not because for me nothing compares to New York. The public transportation and ditto to so much that the other callers have said about the positives of New York. I just felt a little responsibility to get a lower standard of living for myself so I could actually retire because there was just no chance that that was going to happen in New York and wanted to give back.

Brian Lehrer: There you go.

Heather: I thought about going to other countries but thought there's places in the United States where people are hungry. Kids need after-school programs and--

Brian Lehrer: Including Piedmont, Alabama. Thank you very much, Heather. Ashley calling from Boston is going to get our last thought. Ashley, we've got about 15 seconds for you so compare New York to Boston in a sound bite. Thanks for calling.

Ashley: In a sound bite, thank you for having me. I just have to say, we've been here for a year after living in New York for four, and unfortunately, the best way to compare it is just a little bit less than the food scene, the diversity, the energy the transit system. We just find that we're comparing it every time we leave the house and we miss it.

Brian Lehrer: The whole Red Sox thing. Ashley, thank you very much.

Ashley: It's a tough life.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks for all your calls comparing New York to the cities to which you have moved.

 

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