Comment by toast0
9 hours ago
Look, I've visited NYC and there's a lot of nice things, such as mass transit that basically works, food options everywhere, etc. I liked it more than I expected I would.
But there's not a lot of peacefulness. There's certainly not peacefulness outside my bedroom windows anywhere I could afford to live. Sleeping with windows open and waking to birdsong rather than traffic sounds is quality of life for me.
I love cities, and even NYC, but I would never say that mass transit in NYC is "nice". Yes, it is convenient, but it probably needs 25B USD in refurbishment to bring it up to the level of any decent system in Western Europe or East Asia.
You don't have to live in a city if you don't want to. In Japan you can choose if you want to live in the countryside or in the smack middle of Osaka.
You can do the same around NYC: Metro North and LIRR have lots of nearly rural stops that are about one hour from Midtown Manhattan.
Yeah, cars are the #1 of quality of life problem in cities.