Not just New York! Every 20-something I know in Miami is still living with their parents or are splitting the rent amongst five people in a four bedroom house.

My neighborhood is pretty cheap, by NYC standards. It happens to not be in Lower Manhattan or Williamsburg. There are parts of NYC outside the super hip spots.

i've got friends all over the country, but here in my hometown of Des Moines, our situation is different than most.

it's a lot of 20-something's being able to afford houses (rent or own) on their own, even if they don't have high paying jobs.

the market just hasn't quite hit us like it has everywhere else.

my husband and i are renting an 700sf apt *all inclusive (yes, including cable & a storage unit/garage) for $602.

This is why I'm happy here in St. Louis. Last year at 26 I was able to buy a 2000 sq. ft Victorian house, and my mortgage is slightly less than $600 a month. I love NYC, and completely understand that its worth it for some, but I love having space and being able to afford to do the things I love more.

This post made my day, I just moved into my new (crummy) apt in DC yesterday and woke up feeling like I had made a huge mistake. But it's nice to know that I'm not the only one paying outrageous rent for a crummy place (english basement, cold, and apparently has a slight bug problem) for the location and life. Some how knowing that I'm not alone in my logic makes me feel like my decision was valid and a little better :)

This hits in little old Idaho too. I live in Sun Valley, and my first apartment here was 600 square feet for $1400 a month. So it's not just big cities, resorts get it too. Paying for a lifestyle!

The rent is too damn high!

haha:sturgeongeneral...; )

London rents are similar. It's a nightmare.

I can't fathom ever paying so much for rent.

In Cancun, my husband and I pay $350 a month for a small 2-story house with 3 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms. We even have a little back yard and pretty front patio.

It's in a nice family neighborhood with a little park on every corner.

Then again, wages here are much lower as well, so maybe it all evens out :)

Moving to DC forced me to do major mental gymnastics regarding what I was willing to pay for rent, which end up to be $1,400 for 650 sq feet. Making up for it is the nice enclosed "back yard" of our apartment complex, which the cats quickly discovered leads to several more residential backyards.

Half the apartment residents on the first floor converted their windows into pet doors so their cats could roam in the relative safety of various yards. We figured if we are going to pay for outrageous prices then our animals are going to benefit somehow. Given the size of the apartments it was as if we were shopping for a place for our pets to live in.

For me, small and medium-sized cities offer the best of both worlds and a far more affordable and sustainable lifestyle.

I pay less than $1/square foot for my 1930 fourplex apartment with a formal dining room and inside laundry. I live in a beautiful, canopy-covered, midtown neighborhood where I can walk everywhere I need to go, grab a good meal, enjoy beautiful architecture, and still hear myself think. In Sacramento.

New York and San Francisco are beautiful, energetic places, but I need a little quiet, some personal space, and a tree outside my window. And those things are REALLY expensive in a big city.

Although I sure do wish I could spend an afternoon at the MoMA on a whim.

Hell, I'm 37 and was elated to finally find a $600 efficiency bordering San Francisco. Cutting my rent in half will allow me to pay off my cc debt soon and I cringe over the last 14 years spent paying between 1000-1250 for 500-600 sqft boxes I pretty much only slept in.

While it's great to not have to deal with roomates or inlaw apt landlords, my kitchen has no stove and I have a 72sqft living area. In fact, the only thing that's really tripping me is up is deciding which kitchen appliances to buy because I simply don't have storage space for a microwave, toaster oven, burners, etc. I'm trying to limit myself to only two. Eating out all the time vs. trying to cook definitely affects the budget.

Although my SF aspirations began with the tv series Hotel, I purposely avoided the $550-$800 downtown studios because of the rage inducing commute, filthy streets, and an alarming number of bed bug infestations.

There's no advantage to SF living excepting my job and transit. The ever rising costs (and ever decreasing service!) of various transit agencies evaporate the usual rent savings of living outside of SF.

People sure are different. I can't imagine CHOOSING to live in a tight box -- with a roomate! I have a house in a med. size city on a 1/2 acre, and a cottage on the lake nearby. Total cost: $97,000. (yes, both, together). But I love apartment therapy!

All y'all should check out Philadelphia...urban, artsy, awesome food, abundant recreation, good jobs, amazing residential neighborhoods...AND it's incredibly affordable!! Plus it's slightly warmer than NYC and cooler than DC! And an hour from great beaches! I could go on and on. I will probably live here forever...

My boyfriend and I have a deal but it is 2 of us living and working (we are graphic designers and writers so we are together all day) in 250 sq feet. It actually doesn't bother me (or him I think) but we live in Soho for $1150 a month and we make it work.

Its kind of like this funny blog post I wrote about being Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You feel like your location is the Golden Ticket but you live like the grandparents did in one bed...

Here is the post
http://www.artdirectingmylife.com/2010/09/05/living-in-soho-is-like/

I agree with overture. Plenty of small and medium-sized cities offer culture, night life, and good food, at a much lower price point. I would rather spend a smaller percentage of my wages on my rent. That being said, I do agree with Kinky Gazpacho that it's absolutely not worth paying more in transportation money and time to have a lower rent. People need to count transportation as part of their housing budget.

Also, @Kinky Gazpacho: I highly recommend burners and a toaster oven. You can toaster oven most things that you can microwave, plus you can bake individual portions of things. My former roommates and I lived for over a year with just a toaster oven and no microwave, and once we found one at a garage sale, I still didn't tend to use it more than once a month because the results from the toaster oven were so much better. Combine that with burners and you should be able to to anything in small quantities.

The hubs and I have 1200 sq. ft. (2 bed, 2 bath, central a/c & heat) in a locally historic building that was recently rehabbed. Our electric bill has never been over $90/month. Laundry is communal but free. Our rent is $620. The midwest has its advantages. Plus, in the spring, we have the most exciting weather on the planet.

I'm your neighbor clank1969, right here in Camden, New Jersey. In 2002, I purchased a duplex in the Cooper-Grant neighborhood. Cooper-Grants claim to fame is that it is the one neighborhood in Camden City without any boarded-up homes, discounting, I guess Building #6, which is Phase 2 of the famous RCA Victor Building, which is being converted into Condos as I write. This building cost me $64,000. I live across from Johnson Park, which houses Rutgers University's Walt Whitman Poetry Center, one block from Campbell's Field (our minor league baseball team), two blocks from the Delaware River, two blocks from the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, one block from NJ Transits River-Link and Bus stop and about 42 miles from Atlantic City and two blocks from Rutgers-Camden, two blocks from Rowan University. I plan on renting the upper apartment in 2011 for $800 a month which will completely cover my $660 a month mortage and give me a $200 profit. I am looking for a tenant! You gotta see this place. I'm considering a house tour.

It's all about personal priorities. I moved out of SF after 19 years because I want to buy a house. The rents are still fairly outrageous given the slump in the economy. I am saving the money I was previously paying in outrageous rent towards a down payment. There is absolutely no way I could survive in 250 square feet!

I live in Philadelphia too. I wanted to move to New York when I was in my twenties, but after I found out how much the rents are there, I decided to stay in Philly. I think that Philly is the only large city where people can afford to live comfortably.

This article is about why living in NYC is worth small space to New Yorkers. So to the commenters "bragging" about their big homes - you're missing the point. All these NYers could have your big home and chose not to. Not everyone wants what you want, sorry. I'd choose a 500 sq foot apt in NYC over a mansion in Alabama any day.

Me too, bouseredu. We have a 527 sq ft studio in SF, and I LOVE it.

Clank1969, Where are the good jobs in Philly?? I've been wanting to move there 4-ever (from Brooklyn) but can't find work, wahh! BTW, there are apartment deals in the city, you just have to look closely!

@bouseredu To each, his/her own, but a cramped tiny apartment shared with roommates doesn't seem like much quality of life. Sure, NYC has a lot of awesome things going for it, but if you're living in a tiny apartment, that most likely means that you don't have a lot of expendable money. That means you don't get to do as much cool stuff in NYC, whether it's going out to eat or going to a show.

So I'd rather pick that mansion in Alabama any day if that means I also have enough extra money to eat, shop, and go to cultural events or whatever. And Birmingham isn't that bad, haha.

Perhaps it is different on the West Coast. I am moving to Seattle from Portland, and we found a great apartment, 650 sq ft. with two walk-in closets and a huge kitchen for just under $1000/mo. This seems cheap compared to the prices on the East coast. Either way, I'd pay more to live where I can walk to everything.

I used to live in a small town in the midwest. We had the money for multiple cars and an enormous house. But I tell you, I wanted to kill myself there. The people you run into, and having to live in your car to do anthing, and the small scale and low quality of culture events (those that were there) made us run away as fast as we could. Yuck!

I'm sure my old town was not the norm, but it turned me off from suburban living in small cities for the rest of my life.

What I don't understand is the brothers in the Bronx who are so happy to be living in NYC. But if it takes you an hour and half to get to Manhattan, do you really even feel like you're a part of the city? This is not to say that the Bronx isn't part of the city, but the cultural center they're so psyched about isn't in the northwest Bronx.

@ro_ra: Seattle rents are all over the place, and part of your luck is timing. People massively over speculated the housing market here.

3-4 years ago the rental market was in huge pain because affordable places where being flipped into condos and rents where blasting upwards with the housing prices. Cut to now and we have thousands of condo units and no one to buy them, so many are getting converted to high end rentals. Of course that puts pressure on the older rentals and the less nice flipped units. I was renting a studio in 2008 for almost 800 a month with no utilities included, in a crap part of town and that was "a deal".

Also Seattle isn't nearly as big as most of those east coast cities. It just has some hype. It has long been considered overvalued for the given area.

@Marycooksalot: A lot of us don't really choose it. For certain professions you have to move to a big city for a career. Not doing so severely limits your opportunities. For some people those opportunities don't mean crap, they don't care about their work, and so why would they bother? I would love to live on some plot of land outside of the city in a small house and take day trips for the cultural stuff I love in the city, but it isn't feasible.

this is what gutting your rent control laws does. rents double in 10 years. it didn't ALWAYS used to be this expensive to live in major cities. it still isn't in many canadian cities (where we have some form of rent increase caps and strict laws giving tenants rights).

i live in an inner suburb (technically amalgamated) part of toronto and pay $1300 for a 1000 sq foot apartment with a huge balcony. commute to downtown is about 45min. i can walk to stores and the main retail strip. the price to purchase places here is a different story though (we have a bubble!)

i completely understand sacrificing space for city life. however, i wonder at the true cultural value possible in a city where apartments cost $800,000 in the suburbs. all you end up with are rich people, rich foreign people, rich executives, etc. this does not make a society. might as well live in Monaco.

I lived in Philadelphia for awhile and yes there are some good deals on rent BUT you do have to look around for it because Philly can get pretty expensive (not as expensive as NYC) if your picky about the neighborhood you live in

650 sq ft gross (which means 500 sq ft liveable) in mid levels here in Hong Kong where a good friend lives - USD2,000 per month. And its not new or renovated. My 400 sq ft in a not so fab area of Hong Kong in an old building, just purchased for USD450,000. ...no wonder people here are grumbling.

@Allie J New York City consists of five boroughs: 1: Manhattan 2: Brooklyn 3: Queens 4: The Bronx 5: Staten Island..

As someone who lived in Jersey City for 7 years, I can't believe the New Yorkers who are concerned about space and price. It takes 10 minutes by train to get from Jersey City downtown to the West Village, and 20 minutes to midtown. You can easily get a nice size one bedroom apt for the lower 1000s (cheap for NYC area.) It's a beautiful neighborhood with lots of restaurants and shops, markets, brownstones and early 20th century buildings. Parking is easy too.

to monkeylizard: it precisely is the rent control laws that contribute to the high cost of living in nyc (& sf & boston); one look at an econ 2 supply/demand graph shows that when one draws a line artificially below market p, shortage is guaranteed. in cities that halted rc after wwii (philly, jersey city), there is more choice & people are better able to move between units to fit life changes, plus more middle-class housing is built. now there is fear of the chaos that will happen if controls are removed, before the true mkt p is identified. nyc does get lux, non-rc housing built, and that p fluctuates at its lux level; there are some lux jobs in nyc. the $/time cost of transport to anything is a factor & people who think they save money when they live farther away from goods&services fool only themselves. nyc also has international housing demand, increasing competition (possibly excepting for staten island), that few other cities (london, hong kong) have. it is location, location, location.

My boyfriend and I share a 450 square feet 1bedroom apartment in the West Village for which we pay $2100 a month, heat and hot water are included and my gas and electricity bills are never more than $50. It seems like alot, except I only spend $90 a month on transportation, and I pay for that out of my pre-tax income. That means no car payment, no gas, no insurance, no oil changes which I used to spend about $400 a month on when I lived in Texas. I actually dont mind the small space much, it helps me keep from buying things I don't really need and as a result, I love love love everything I do have. That said, my apartment has a pretty killer floor plan and we have tons of windows, which does help make things feel bigger. Sometimes we talk about moving somewhere with more space, but we always come back to agreeing that this place is perfect, even if it is a six-floor walk up.

It's a similar situation here in London. Even out in the suburbs, rents are sky high. With property prices in London so high, young people are finding it increasingly difficult to finance college debts, pay the rent and scrape together a deposit to get a foot on the property ladder.

as Gaidig said, you have to count the whole package of living expenses including transportation, and consider that it's only in large cities that it's really feasible to live without a car. well, then i guess it's still a matter of personal preference. We just bought a 3br condo in greater Boston for just under $300k, and can get unlimited public transportation for $60/mo, which along with the occasional zipcar is totally sufficient.

and i thought paying $575 for a 200sqft studio alone with my cat was rough...i can't image sharing this space, it would be impossible.

Don't kid yourselves, the ONLY people who benefit from extortionate rents are unscrupulous landlords.

instantphoebe, very true and as you said, to each his own. But I have to say that one's apt cost or size doesn't necessarily mean their expendable income isn't sufficient enough to do all the things that NY offers. I think a lot of NYers go for small,more affordable apts so they have MORE extra cash that can be spent enjoying the city (rather than on extra square footage). My point is just that everyone has their own preferences but for some reason people who live in big houses/apts think it's okay to criticize city dwellers for chosing their city life over space. Space is overrated!

KayinKCMO, we have housing similar to yours, but 30 miles SE from SF (more than twice as expensive)

our winters are much warmer than Midwest, how come your energy bills are that low?

@LauraInCancun: Just so you know, for those of us living in east coast cities, it is rare that a dwelling (i.e. house, apartment, etc) can be found with rent less than 800/month -- and that's cheap.

(by east coast cities, I mean major east coast metropolitan areas -- NYC, Boston, DC, etc)

My bf and I live in Manhattan and we pay 1650 dollars for a one bedroom which is a really good deal considering its size and location. My friend who lives one street up pays 1900 for a slightly smaller space. NY is amazing and until Im old and gray, there is nowhere I would rather live.

I have to wonder if those wire chairs are comfortable to sit in?