Are there bad/crappy parts of Astoria at all? I'm looking at purchasing in the next few years and prices didn't look bad there at all. Like 300k for a 2 bedroom.
That's a few blocks south of me, and it's not necessarily a bad place. However, it is physically adjacent to a housing project, and that is the reason for the low price.
It's just advise from an old real estate pro, mainly having to do with the fact that a 2 bedroom has a more limited market. That and two bathrooms is a must.
3 bedroom house means: Master bedroom - sleep and rompus room! 2nd bedroom - office for Andrew to study and play games, me sometimes play games. 3rd bedroom - Lyddi's craft room extravaganza!
If house comes with an office in addition to 3 bedrooms, 2nd bedroom becomes kitty play room. Basement doesn't count towards anything because that automatically becomes Andrew's beer brewing realm.
I didn't say it was the biggest. The thing is people just see Manhattan and don't realize that Queens and Brooklyn do stretch out quite far to the East.
Just making a point. Your size isn't impressive, as it were, what New York DOES with that size is. Your city fits into mine five times over, but you have four times the population, and account for a fifteenth of the US GDP. Not to mention, if you knock out New York, other forteen teenths are going to be playing with a lot less pocket change. Now THAT is impressive. The sheer physical size of the place isn't even anything to brag about, even in your own country, you're only 25th. If you're charitable, and remove the ludicrously sized towns in Alaska - Yukatat, the largest city in the US, covers 12000-ish square kilometers, and has a smaller population than the high school down the road from me - you still only rise to 20th.
It's really nothing new to anyone that has lived in one of the Major cities in the US. But like I said, size isn't where NYC shines.
We also have the largest bridge in the world. It connects New York City to the mainland.
Staten Island.
That's genuinely new to me. I thought the longest bridge you had was Verrazano-Narrows, because I KNOW that's the longest suspension bridge in the US, though not the world - I'll keep the wisecrack to myself, thank you - and it's definitely not the longest bridge in the world, the longest bridge of any type is in China, and I'm pretty sure the longest suspension bridge is in Japan. I know the longest over water is in the US, though, but I'm pretty sure it's in Louisiana, but I'm not really terribly sure.
And yes, I am a monster at pub trivia.
Staten island, though, it's a bit dodgy everywhere outside of the navy base, which is quite nice. Well, For a Navy Base. It's got a nice view, or at least, it had a nice view.
Singapore has it great spots: food, the safety, and of course, I can't go into any other country or city withought commenting on the lack of trees and greenery. Also business startups and the ease of business, easily applied, easily started up.
However, downsides of beings a city state and not just a city within a country. Unless you are catering to a global audience, good fucking luck. The thing is that Singaporeans have no idea who we want to be: global citizens, or national citizens.
NYC is one of those places where people have no problems calling themselves New Yorkers AS WELL as a United States Citizens. Singaporeans are forever being pushed one way via western globalization (hence the derisiveness of all things local which has severely hurt the software of the local creative industries here), while at the same time trying to honor "local" traditions and classifications. As the older generations die off, Singaporeans may in the end loose all local and cultural identity and become a singular people at the whims of Globalization and Market Influences. You could say we were made for that....at the expense of everything else.
Whether NYC can exist as a City State, I cannot say. Singapore became a city state out of survival and necessity in its history. We would had been incorporated into a greater South East Asian landscape in the 1960s, only to split off, a small island on its own with its people suddenly having no ties to anywhere else. Either it prioritized and positioned itself to attract investors, and have a master plan that prioritized growth at the expense of culture and heritage for 30 years, or it died off, it was that simple. Theres a reason why William Gibson saw in the city his dystopias, and called Singapore scarily manufactured with no soul or history. Things like the death penalty and mandatory military service still exist because, as a city state, survival and security is still top priority.
I ask Sott, or Rym, would you guys be prepared for the expenses of becoming a city state, and all that it entails? I doubt the Singapore model could ever occur nowadays, you guys should instead look at the Hong Kong Model, whose ties to the Chinese Mainland is still a feasible way to go about things.
I see some of the things you are saying about Singapore, and I don't have answers for all of them. However, I wonder if certain things are really necessary.
If New York were a city state, would it need a military at all? We have volunteer police that we can afford to pay for. Is anyone going to invade or conquer us? Even if someone did, many would defend us purely out of their own self interest.
As for culture, I already feel like a global/Internet citizen, and that is why I like New York so much. Every culture is represented here. Just last week at work there were loud noises outside. It was a bunch of Albanians celebrating 100 years of independence. That's on the same street as the Thanksgiving parade. The same street I cross to go to work. The same street I bike on. The same street tourists walk on. The same street peddlers peddle on.
I think the really strong New York culture that you can see in a lot of old movies is hard to find these days. It's still there as history you can seek out, but only lives on in small pockets. I think becoming independent would have little effect culturally.
It would be silly for New York to be its own nation. But, I would make sense in many ways for it to be its own state.
We already hacked the laws to be able to administer the boroughs effectively: they're each technically their own independent counties. Wealth redistribution would still happen at the federal level for upstate New York. Not much would change except that New York could self-manage much more efficiently.
Earth should be country, Earth would be best country.
I think global government is unfeasible and problematic. First you have the problem where if the one government goes corrupt, everybody's fucked. By having separate governments, we introduce consequences for fucking up (i.e. if there's a Hitler or a Pol Pot in the world, there's other people with the power to stop them).
The scope of the damn thing would be too great as well, assuming we don't want a dictatorship or monarchy. Democracy doesn't work well on too large scales. The government gets brought to the middle by swing voters, leaving the yellow-dog voters and the radicals (also known as %80 of the population) from being governed as they want.
World government is cute and idealist, but in practice everyone would just be pissed at each other.
Comments
Yea, I'd shoot for 3 bedrooms in the city (remember a bedroom is just a room with a closet) and a 4 bedroom in the suburbs.
(or if you are crazy like me you buy a 5 bedroom house with just the two of you)
3 bedroom house means:
Master bedroom - sleep and rompus room!
2nd bedroom - office for Andrew to study and play games, me sometimes play games.
3rd bedroom - Lyddi's craft room extravaganza!
If house comes with an office in addition to 3 bedrooms, 2nd bedroom becomes kitty play room. Basement doesn't count towards anything because that automatically becomes Andrew's beer brewing realm.
It's really nothing new to anyone that has lived in one of the Major cities in the US. But like I said, size isn't where NYC shines.
That's genuinely new to me. I thought the longest bridge you had was Verrazano-Narrows, because I KNOW that's the longest suspension bridge in the US, though not the world - I'll keep the wisecrack to myself, thank you - and it's definitely not the longest bridge in the world, the longest bridge of any type is in China, and I'm pretty sure the longest suspension bridge is in Japan. I know the longest over water is in the US, though, but I'm pretty sure it's in Louisiana, but I'm not really terribly sure.
And yes, I am a monster at pub trivia.
Staten island, though, it's a bit dodgy everywhere outside of the navy base, which is quite nice. Well, For a Navy Base. It's got a nice view, or at least, it had a nice view.
However, downsides of beings a city state and not just a city within a country. Unless you are catering to a global audience, good fucking luck. The thing is that Singaporeans have no idea who we want to be: global citizens, or national citizens.
NYC is one of those places where people have no problems calling themselves New Yorkers AS WELL as a United States Citizens. Singaporeans are forever being pushed one way via western globalization (hence the derisiveness of all things local which has severely hurt the software of the local creative industries here), while at the same time trying to honor "local" traditions and classifications. As the older generations die off, Singaporeans may in the end loose all local and cultural identity and become a singular people at the whims of Globalization and Market Influences. You could say we were made for that....at the expense of everything else.
Whether NYC can exist as a City State, I cannot say. Singapore became a city state out of survival and necessity in its history. We would had been incorporated into a greater South East Asian landscape in the 1960s, only to split off, a small island on its own with its people suddenly having no ties to anywhere else. Either it prioritized and positioned itself to attract investors, and have a master plan that prioritized growth at the expense of culture and heritage for 30 years, or it died off, it was that simple. Theres a reason why William Gibson saw in the city his dystopias, and called Singapore scarily manufactured with no soul or history. Things like the death penalty and mandatory military service still exist because, as a city state, survival and security is still top priority.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland_with_the_Death_Penalty: of course things have changed a lot since then, but William Gibson's piece influenced many here in Singapore and still resonates today.
I ask Sott, or Rym, would you guys be prepared for the expenses of becoming a city state, and all that it entails? I doubt the Singapore model could ever occur nowadays, you guys should instead look at the Hong Kong Model, whose ties to the Chinese Mainland is still a feasible way to go about things.
If New York were a city state, would it need a military at all? We have volunteer police that we can afford to pay for. Is anyone going to invade or conquer us? Even if someone did, many would defend us purely out of their own self interest.
As for culture, I already feel like a global/Internet citizen, and that is why I like New York so much. Every culture is represented here. Just last week at work there were loud noises outside. It was a bunch of Albanians celebrating 100 years of independence. That's on the same street as the Thanksgiving parade. The same street I cross to go to work. The same street I bike on. The same street tourists walk on. The same street peddlers peddle on.
I think the really strong New York culture that you can see in a lot of old movies is hard to find these days. It's still there as history you can seek out, but only lives on in small pockets. I think becoming independent would have little effect culturally.
We already hacked the laws to be able to administer the boroughs effectively: they're each technically their own independent counties. Wealth redistribution would still happen at the federal level for upstate New York. Not much would change except that New York could self-manage much more efficiently.
Yes, I know this is the best country, but USA has the best state. ^_~
The scope of the damn thing would be too great as well, assuming we don't want a dictatorship or monarchy. Democracy doesn't work well on too large scales. The government gets brought to the middle by swing voters, leaving the yellow-dog voters and the radicals (also known as %80 of the population) from being governed as they want.
World government is cute and idealist, but in practice everyone would just be pissed at each other.