You mean like CA where you haven’t made it unless you’re an actor in Hollywood? Or San Diego, where everyone is retired, in the military, or a gov’t contractor? That’s as much of a deluded and warped opinion of CA as yours is of NY.

The finance sector exists and does have a certain fawked-up subculture to it. Fortunately, it’s not the only industry in the city. Plenty of tech companies have set up shop in the past 15 years, pharma, universities, biomedical research, design, telecoms, engineering firms, government/UN. In fact, very few of my friends work for the big “downtown” banks.

Yeah, living in the ‘burbs if you’re single wouldn’t be ideal. Far better, hipper, and possibly cheaper to live in Queens or Brooklyn if you’re actually working in NYC. If you’re working in the ‘burbs, some places might by OK since they’re more like self-contained small towns.

I live in NYC. I’m in CA for work sometimes and am considering purchasing investment condos there, hence this forum. I’m also looking in NJ — better cap rates right now and the market is getting flooded with foreclosures and shorts as we speak.

This being said, I’d never actually live in NJ by choice, but rentals there comp out nicely right now and have the advantage of being near by.

Lastly, I’m not sure if I could cut it in the CA job market. A lot more of the jobs require letters after your name, whereas the attitude here is that if you can do it and have good references, you’ll get paid to do it.