A little closer to home is Lincoln Park, which is maybe a 1/2 mile walk from the West Side light rail. The bulk of the park is typical park — ballfields, playgrounds, open spaces. But the west side of the park (across 440; there are two bridges that go over) is a nature preserve with trails you can walk to the Hackensack River. My wife leads birdwatching tours there sometimes, it's a very nice spot. Although you get the incongruity of peaceful marshland and the giant factory across the river...

Look at Back to the Future II — everyone has a flying car... and several fax machines. Virtually no one predicted the internet or smartphones, virtually everyone predicted flying cars and people living on the moon.

So you're suggesting that there's no way you could pluck the character of Dr. Frasier Crane from an ensemble show and put him into a new ensemble? Yeah, that would never work.

(glares at That 90s Show...)

Yeah, JC Autobody was the place with the high estimate and the childish Let's Go Brandon flag. I wasn't crazy about giving those people my money.

Didn't even realize they did body work! Thanks!

Thanks, I'll check them out!

A little out of the way, but if I can't find anyone good in JC, might be worth it!

25 years ago, Jersey City was the poorest city in America, so, yes, there was a lot of crime (as there was in cities nationwide in that era). Then after 9/11, a lot of Wall Street firms that had been in or near the WTC moved here, so it was the poorest city in America, plus Wall Street. In the intervening decades, the middle (and in particular the upper middle) has filled in quite a bit.

And the result has been a precipitous drop in crime. The overall crime rate is about half what it was in 2005, and there were 12 murders in the whole city in 2022, which might be the lowest number in the entire history of Jersey City.

Word to the wise, anyone who's frothing at the mouth about "woke indoctrination" is not someone who's worth engaging with.

I just wrote a kids' book about the solar system, and my take is that it's not that Pluto isn't a planet. It's that we now have so many planets we need multiple categories for them, and Pluto absolutely fits better into the "dwarf planet" category than the "rocky/inner planet" category.

If you think those are bad, you should have seen the C-Town they tore down on Central.

Anyway, I'll second the small produce shops around the neighborhood. Otherwise take the elevator down to Hoboken.

Sure, but it's set up like a traditional city, with a downtown near the water, and less dense neighborhoods the further you get from that city center.

Also, does Kathmandu have a gigantic park bringing down the average?

They probably made the distinction because it's far denser than the other boroughs. Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx are mid-sized cities with downtowns and residential areas. Manhattan's a super-city with several downtowns, and almost no single-family homes.

Then Broboken is not the place for you!

Hoboken's only a square mile, and JC is roughly the size of St. Louis. So rather than trying to make an apples-to-apples comparison, think of Hoboken as Jersey City's most overpriced, parking-deprived, overrun-with-bros neighborhood, and ask the real question, which is, which JC neighborhood do you want to live in.

Personally, I think if you're going for LUXURY, you're overpaying, but anything close to the Hudson River (ie. downtown) is going to be what you're looking for, and anywhere downtown is going to be close to transit.

As for bars/nightlife/meeting people, Grove St. is really the center of things (and also a subway station). No nature trails to speak of, but lots of bike lanes, and believe it or not there are a few good nature spots in Jersey City — the back half of Lincoln Park on the west side is a nature preserve that sits on the Hackensack River (now with much less pollution!), and Caven Point in Liberty State Park is a gem — a little hidden-away beach with a view of the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan, although it's closed in the summer because it's also a fragile migratory bird habitat.

A bit more than that. A space for private events, a first-floor cafe open to the public, and a roof deck, although I'm not sure what they're doing with it or who has access.

Obviously, everyone has their own priorities (and I absolutely understand wanting to live in Cleveland). And I'm in Jersey City, which is a little cheaper than NYC proper, and we have a few of the best public schools in the state. (and we have public pools here too, and an indoor ice skating rink!) And not to brag, but my mortage is less than yours (I happened to buy when interest rates were at their absolute lowest!).

But you can't really tell a children's book designer "you could have been an electrician!" any more than you can tell an electician "you could have been a children's book designer." I'm really not cut out for that kind of work at all. I gravitated to this career because it was what I was good at and enjoyed. (And I was lucky to be able to do that, and everyone should be just as lucky).

Agreed. The city would be so much better if they banned investment properties and actually used our housing stock for housing. Or if they just killed all the billionaires; either works for me.

> why did you stay in NYC if it’s so expensive?

This is where the jobs are. In my field (publishing) and in general. And that means a couple things:

A) If I had stayed in my hometown after college, I would have been a waiter instead of a newspaper designer, which was the first rung on the ladder.

B) If I moved to my hometown now, it'd be very tough to find a job in my field, and even if I could demand any job in town, it'd pay half what I make now.

And then there's just the fact that my life is here. My friends, my kids' friends, relationships I have going back 25 years. And, there's just a lot more happening here than where I'm from (which is, realistically, the easiest place for me to move). And I don't just mean nightlife and whatnot. I mean the possibilities are endless in a big city and feel very limited in a small one. If I lose my job, I know a few dozen people at maybe a dozen other publishers I could call. A friend from high school who stayed around there lost his job and there simply weren't any others. And he has an MBA!

It's a problem for the whole country. There are places with lots of high-paying jobs that are too expensive to live, and places that are cheap to live and don't have good jobs. And maybe you can luck into a situation that avoids that trend, but overall that's the trend.

And, again, not directed at OP at all because to his credit he didn't do this, but any time you hear "this person saved $10,000 a year, why can't you?" it's inevitably a 26 year old who earns six figures and has no dependents. Like, I'm 47, have seen my income steadily increase for my entire adult life, and only just got to the point where this kid is. So — surprise! — I wasn't able to save any money while struggling to pay rent and raising two kids on credit card debt.

And let's be clear, I had it easy! Middle-class upbringing, in a town with great public schools, graduated from a state university without a dime of debt, no serious medical issues, no real family drama — but I live in NYC, it's expensive, and I don't work in finance or tech, so it's hard to get by.

Which is all to say that being in the financial position OP is in is exceptional, and we need to remind ourselves of that sometimes.

The U.S. only taxes inheritance over a certain amount (and that's well over a million dollars). Republicans talk about the "death tax" as if it's crushing the common man, but it's a millionaire's tax that very few people pay.

Obviously I don't know anything about that commeter's personal history, but dollars to donuts, it's, "if I, an able-bodied white man, can make it in this country than surely anyone can!"