Boring Unaffordable Gentrified Nightmare
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11/26/2021
My family's 4th generation Westchester. The problem is, it went from "a lil pricey, lots of affluent folks, but certainly feasible for blue-collar, working-class families (like my own)" to "completely gentrified, working-class families can no longer get by, obscenely expensive and not even interesting enough to make up for it".
A studio apartment here costs $1500/mo alone, a 1drm is something like $2100. You'd need to be making *AT LEAST* $60k/yr, after taxes, to afford it. And if you, like me or most Americans, are not making upwards of $60k/yr, then you're screwed because no job here pays anything close to cover the cost of living. The most I've ever made was $19/hr at a full-time office job and I had to sublease a room from a random Nicaraguan family for $800/mo. Not exaggerating.
And this might sound great to you so far, but what if you move your family here and your kid isn't as successful as you, what if they can't move out because they only make minimum wage. What if they need to but can't move to a cheaper state because they're dirt broke and the cost of living here is too expensive for them to save up? Well, you'll either end up paying their rent, paying all the moving costs, or having them live with you. Forever. Last option's most likely, there are TONS of adult children living with their parents here.
There is barely anything to do, it's the suburbs, what do you expect. Massive heroin addiction epidemic. Lots and lots of extremely classist, upper-middle-class white people who openly stare at you in public if you look even vaguely out of the ordinary. I've been grabbed and wrongfully accused of stealing by 3 separate stores because I dared to shop while having tattoos. The school districts, despite their high funding, are toilet-tier.
Don't move here, don't do it to yourself, I'm getting out as soon as humanly possible.
Ruane | Croton-on-Hudson, NY