Twentysomething: Forget the big city, try middle America
By Ryan Healy — Soaring education, housing and health care costs in recent years have made simply staying afloat in a large metropolis next to impossible without a huge salary and benefits package.
These rising costs are causing the well educated to “sell their souls” to law firms, investment banks, and management consulting firms to maintain the upper middle class life most of our parents provided for us, According to social critic Daniel Brook, whose debut book is The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner Take-All America.
I know what you’re thinking: Those college grads making $80,000 bonuses on Wall Street do not deserve any sympathy; They made a choice to live in the most expensive city in the country and they made a choice to work like slaves for a few years until they can retire to their yachts and country clubs.
But if you really look into the situation, Brook has a point. Wall Street I-bankers are certainly earning more than enough to simply “stay afloat,” but the rest of us are selling out for the sole reason of living in a “cool” city.
Junior year of college, I realized my passion was to become an entrepreneur. It didn’t matter. I sold out. I moved to the big city with the enormous rent payments. I took the decent paying job to support my living and partying expenses. Most people I know did the same. Some are content, some are looking for a way out, some are happy.
Some of us grew up with dreams of becoming artists, musicians or non profit executives. Regardless of the dream, most of us settled for the same thing; a decent paying job in an overpriced city. What I now realize from first hand experience is unless you’re an investment banker with semi-realistic plans of retiring at 35 with a couple million; the big city is overrated.
Is it really imperative to live on New York’s Upper East Side, San Francisco’s Marina or Washington D.C.’s Dupont Circle? Why not say “screw you” to the boring job in New York and take the exciting job in Cincinnati, Ohio?
My friends from college, Matt, Cole and Adam, knew from day one they didn’t want to work for a corporation. They came up with an idea, raised some money and toured the country to find the best place for their first in a chain of restaurants called Fat Sandwich Co.
They opened in Norman, Oklahoma. All three are from the Philadelphia/New Jersey
area and all of our friends told them they would hate living in Oklahoma. Last
week Cole told me that none of them even want to move back to the east coast.
From the outside, cities like Cincinnati, Ohio and Norman, Oklahoma aren’t nearly as exciting or trendy as New York or San Francisco. According to Brook, and I completely agree, chances are we will just be able to “stay afloat” either way. Since that is the case, I will not hesitate to choosethe fulfilling, under paying job in a small city rather than grind it out during the week to party until 4a.m. on Friday with the rest of the yuppies in the big city.
My lease is up in two months and it’s finally time to pursue my passion. I want a relatively inexpensive city with good entrepreneurial opportunities. I no longer care about trendy bars; I have no desire to eat at expensive restaurants. Some things are more important. It’s time for me to make a decision, because there is no reason to be bound by geography or the “coolness” factor of a city.
Ryan Healy’s blog is Employee Evolution.
This pretty much embodies exactly how I felt before I left New York after five years of living there. I had to sell out and keep my job as an executive assistant to pay for my apartment (which wasn’t extragagant, but in Brooklyn) to live in a city I loved, but frankly couldn’t afford. It took a lot to get over the snobbery of “Why would you want to live anywhere other than New York” but I’m so much happier now, working a job I enjoy in smaller city Atlanta. I’ve also found that people here are well connected and willing to help, it’s not as hard to get ahead, and the city is very livable. It has the art, culture, diversity and forward thinking mentality I enjoy about a bigger city, but I don’t have to live in a shoe box, commute a hour to NJ or most importanly, work a job I don’t like. For me, leaving New York was like breaking up with your high school sweetheart. While you can’t imagine life without it, you’re better for it. From a person on the other side, I can tell you now that there is life outside of New York- and it might even be better.
I read a lot of finance magazines, and they all give the same advice. The only problem is that it ignores the fact that for minority groups (be it race or sexual orientation or etc), it’s not always as comfortable to move to middle America. This isn’t to say that middle America is racist, bigoted, or unaccepting. But there can be a big level of difference to live a big city, where people don’t blink (or ask questions… or point at a person and say “people like that”) at different types of food, or certain customs, or even know what particular holidays are important to a given group. Just those little things can make a huge impact on quality of life.
One idea is that you miss the intellectual and creative stimulation of the big city by living in small middle American towns. I am from Ohio (Akron) and have been here all my life except for when I went to college in Oakland, CA and New York. I must say that you experience more culture and diversity in those big, expensive places. And for some of us that’s really important. Maybe I have grass is greener syndrome, but it sure did suck coming back to Akron after living in bustling places like those. Life is cheaper here, but it’s a tradeoff. There is a price.
Great post! I am formerly from NY – moved to Raleigh, NC 3 yrs ago. We (my wife and I) absolutely love it. Great place for entrepreneurship too. Check out any “best places to live” polls/ratings and Raleigh, NC will be on many of them. If you want more info let me know. Just a thought for you!
I absolutely agree heres my story i come from a mid size town in west central texas and moved to San Antonne 2 hrs south thinking just because it was americas 7th largest city i thought bigger was bettter and i would get my new start in life but i was wrong for those newcommers like me theres no oppertunity whatsoever everything takes a car or bus traffic sucks no one gives you a chance people are rude/cynical the standard is low and crushed dreams/the unjust prevail i only lasted two semesters at sac (san antonio college) the states biggest community college at first everything was exciting then i got my spirits crushed never really made a dime there no job too much competition so after 8 mos i came back home and am still coping with reality. now i want to move to a new mid size city in mid or northern america with a big lake well developed infrastructure 100,000 people i guess and great homes /architecture everywhere hint albany new ny, or something like that maybe ohio God texas is depressing.