Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Expensive cities and minimum wage

Have you ever wondered how people living in expensive cities make ends meet working at an inner city mega takeaway food joint? ...Probably not, right?

Well I did, it seemed impossible...like a job that shouldn't even be able to exist! I mean inner city real estate would not be affordable in addition to other living expenses, therefore they would have to live in the outer suburbs, requiring a means of transportation which is just another expensive to be afforded.

I asked some anonymous people online how it was possible. One response struck me


They used to live in New York sharing a "huge" apartment with 8 people. The anonymous replier worked 2 jobs and they barely made ends meet. Stated "Not even worth the experience".


When asked "What Was the 'experience'? Big City Living?"


They responded again stating "Yup, being in NYC itself is the experience. It was fun but I wouldn't do it again. A bunch of my friends went to live there after college and we tried to hang out be we all worked too much. 
Expectation: Would be like Friends
Reality: All of us working back to back jobs with schedules that never meet up.


Oh joy, another reason to lament how big business is shaping modern civilization in the many parts of the,so-called, developed World.

All this information exchange came about when I noticed that a lot of my 'Friends' on Facebook (from Australia) have been visiting New York...and by the photographic evidence doing some pretty cool, yet predictable, activities and being the 100th Millionth person to photographic the Statue of Liberty.

Personally, if I were to visit New York City, my #1 destination would be the John Lennon Memorial in Central Park, as pictured below...and then off to have a slice of NY Pizza with a frosty Coca Cola :)

How about you?


8 comments:

  1. I'd like to live in Bergen, Norway. That's an expensive city!!

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  2. That is one problem I've seen people say they have with Friends, that Monica lived in such a massive apartment but it seemed like she never afford it. I hadn't wondered how people worked in say small take away places but still afforded to live in those places, typically it is done by an awful lot of people sharing one place.

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  3. I've heard story about NY too. You get to see the city only when you are getting to or from work.

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  4. I've heard NY smells bad from all the trash on the streets, true/false?

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  5. I would be excited to try food. My one impression from going to NY as a kid was I expected every street to be teeming with people, I hardly saw anybody on the sidewalk. 80's movies mad me think it would be super crowded all the time, and that just wasn't the experience I had. Again I was a kid like 8 or so years old, so who knows but that is the stand out memory I have from NY.

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  6. Urg- I'm torn. On the one hand, I'd like the experience of visiting NYC. On the other, I can barely stand to walk thru the mall in a small city without wanting to strangle everyone around me.

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  7. I loved NYC in my holiday. It is a wonderful city to live in.

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  8. I like what you say about John Lennon! And yeah, i agree. I live in Sydney, and a few of my friends are moving out right now after school, but they are all finding it ridiculously hard to find a place which is anything close to cheap, let alone liveable. Sad, (developed) world..

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