Are You Crazy for Living in a Crazy Expensive City?

Cities like New York, Toronto, London, and Sydney have extremely expensive housing not just because a lot of people want to live there — although that’s obviously true too — but because of dysfunctional housing policies that limit how much housing can be built. But given the unfortunate reality that these cities are very expensive, does it ever make financial sense to live in them? Are you crazy for trying to make it work instead of giving up and moving somewhere else with more reasonable housing costs?

Keep Urbanity rolling:

#urbanplanning #housingcrisis #newyork #toronto #london #sydney

[RMTransit]

Great video! Transportation costs are such a big factor, its amazing how many people still live in a city like Toronto with a car. Could save a *lot* every month without!

[humanecities]

What’s really sad about retail workers making so much less is that people will say “They’re not longterm jobs. People should work to get a new career, not stay in retail.” But when you’re in retail you’re hardly paid enough to access the basic necessities, so how are you meant to move up?

[knarf_on_a_bike]

We live in a walkable neighbourhood in Toronto. We're also 50 metres from a subway station and we don't own a car. Rent controls keep our apartment cost reasonable - but honestly, we couldn't afford to move into a new place because rent control doesn't apply to new rentals. Luckily, Toronto is very affordable for us, but it might not be so easy for new renters.

[SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

Something that keeps me looking for a home in an expensive urban center is the cost of socializing.

People that live further away from the city tend to also have their homes very far from any place where they can meet friends. As a result, they always tend to meet up with people at their home which leads to them doing these lavish projects in order to make their living room and backyards a usable “meeting place.” Projects which don’t always actually add the the overall value of the home.

But when you live in a more urban area you tend to have lots of access to great bars, breweries, restaurants, parks, etc all within walking distance! So If I’m meeting with a large group of people it’s more likely that we just meet at one of those locations!

[cristinamazza]

I bought a home, didn’t sell a car, and have a job that can be done in a cheaper city, but living in downtown Toronto is still 100% worth it to me for the quality of life factors you mentioned near the end of the video lol. Still, this video does a great job of showing the potential cost benefits of moving to an expensive city, such as transit and work opportunity.

[aarons]

Thanks for the great and informative video loving the content on the Channel!

[alexanderfysh]

My family and I live in downtown Ottawa, and I feel like the amount we save not owning a car is really what makes the difference in us being able to afford our enjoyable lifestyle.

[davidbarts]

A good comparison. Shows how many factors they are and how personal and subjective it ultimately all is. I have made both expensive major cities and smaller less expensive ones work for me. Currently living in a big, expensive city and yes I am well aware the housing costs more here but I also have lots of friends here, like the area, and am earning enough money to afford that cost of living, so it is worth it *to me.* It does not hurt my feelings that others choose to live elsewhere because it is not worth it *to them.*

[WhiskyCanuck]

"Kids need more space, but don't bring in any money"

* Charles Dickens has entered the chat.

[mirceskiandrej]

Lol, I live in Palo Alto, CA - when people from around here go bankrupt and lose everything they move to more affordable places such as NY, Toronto etc.

[rewindoflow]

1:15 - As a Mancunian (though soon to leave for London on account of my job😥), thank you for recognising Manchester as England's second city. 🙏

[KannikCat]

Love the model railroad shot at the end... :D (And, to be clear, the rest of the video too! Especially fun recognizing the locations in my time living in or near Toronto, Ottawa, and SF. :)

[Draxis]

Youtube really knows how to recomend good small channels. Informative with charts and a nice narration with separated topics along the lines. Are you guys teachers? I hope so.

[bikinglemur]

Thank you for making this! I recently moved from Chicago to San Francisco, and this video helps me articulate how the increased cost of living is ultimately offset by a number of factors (especially #1 rent vs buy price difference). Related note -- very few of the other transplants I know in SF plan to settle in the Bay Area because of how expensive buying is, vs Chicago where a lot of other transplants I knew thought they might stay

[matthewconstantine]

When I moved from my small town in Maine to just outside of Washington D.C., the cost of living went up quite a bit, but my pay went up way more. And I had access to so much more. Even the public transit, which isn't great, was so much better. But as you say, the cost of buying a home was WAY higher here. Of course, now the price to buy a home in Maine has skyrocketed and you still don't have access to anything, unless you really like trees.

[lizziesmusicmaking]

I can't afford a car no matter where I live. Not if I don't want to live in that car. Living in a moderate sized city with decent transit makes life without a car a lot better than living in a small town with bad transit. The really expensive cities are too expensive for me, period.

[prwnageify]

In big cities, salary is a big difference but so is opportunity. The verdict may not be out on this yet, but I believe even in the remote work era, you could still be missing out on a lot of potential opportunities by living in a city with little job market in your sector. So, not only does your salary tend to increase for the same career level, you may find yourself actually advancing faster in your career as well which makes an even bigger difference in salary.

[roar]

I live in the Bay Area and it's tough with the housing costs. I save money on transportation as I sold my car and primarily get around by my electric bike. But it's definitely not possible for me to buy a house here. It's somewhat ok for renting, only a matter of time until I move away to buy property. For now though there's a lot of fun things to do here and easy to make friends because people are always moving here (and of course moving out because of the cost) so it's easy to meet people.

[pbilk]

I love this well rounded video on this topic. I can really relate as we are looking to moving from a small town that is pretty walkable of you live near downtown to a medium size city in Ontario.

[Hyperventilacion]

There is a pretty interesting video by Tech Altar in which he calculates the average costs by the lifetime of the vehicle, which is insanely high. Sometimes it may be worth paying more to be car free, if you're paying the price of a small condo just for a depreciating piece of metal.