My nonprofit friend working in the inner city of another city is visiting. I don’t remember the last time having such great conversations with another person. I want her (and other great friends away from New York) to move here, because I tell her Brooklyn apartments are cheaper now and wouldn’t it be great if all of us could get together like this and have house parties sipping wine and eating cheese and continuing these conversations, forever? I also tell her New York is messed up, there’re plenty of problems for her to solve.
I am doing this because I am selfish: I miss people outside of corproate America. But I know you couldn’t survive on $30K/year in New York. You could, but your life would suck. You wouldn’t be happy, becuase this city has too many models pumping up the fashion curve and nobody feels great wearing only Old Navy.
Then we meet an alumni on the train (this is why New York is random) and she tells us she knows how we (more specifically my friend) feel. She was once a nonprofit worker, too. But now she’s married rich, and that, apparently, is the only way to combine the best of two worlds: to save the world while living it large.
Money may not be as important in other cities, but it is in New York. Those who tell you money is not important in New York are old new yorkers with real estate inheritance from parents or rent controlled apartments. Because you cannot possibly have a life living in a closet with roaches and rats. I see hipsters in Williamsburg who devote their lives to music liviging in beautiful lofts, then I find out their parents are hedge fund owners from Connecticut.
Saving the world is extremely tough because you don’t ever make money and most of the times you feel like you are not making any real changes. Even Obama became a community organizer because his grandmother paid for his Ivy League tuition from Columbia and other expenses along the way, and things are a lot cheaper back then anyways.
