Map: All of the Other Places You Could Live for the Same Price of Your New York City Rent
Have you ever considered skipping out on New York City life for a more tranquil environment light years away from the ever-present minefield of NYC dog-poop? The presumably tiny apartment that you may inhabit with up to 43 roommates might be costing you a fortune, and truth be told, those hefty rent checks would probably go a lot further anywhere else in the world—and we’re not just talking middle-America. There’s now a map that demonstrates what other places in the world you can live for the same cost as living in your New York neighborhood. As it turns out, you might be able to afford a villa somewhere in Portugal instead of your Park Slope home.
From NeighborhoodX, a forthcoming urban data and reporting startup, comes the ultimate interactive map surely to induce cringe-worthy bouts of FOMO and a gnawing desire to embark upon a permanent vacation. According to the data-scientists at NeighborhoodX, who compared the average price of two-bedroom apartments across NYC with their price equivalents in places ranging from Mexico to the Dominican Republic to Toronto to Scotland, living in the five boroughs is like living in a resort town or a generations-old city in western Europe.
Founder of NeighborhoodX, Constantine Valhouli, told Gothamist that the average prices for a two-bedroom in New York’s lesser-known neighborhoods “are the equivalent price per square foot of some of the best neighborhoods of leading worldwide cities.” That being said, if you’re struggling to make ends meet in a two-bedroom in Bed-Stuy, you might want to marry a French national, as that 568-per-square-foot apartment could land you a similar living situation next to the crystal-blue shores of Nice. Likewise, you could ostensibly trade in a ramshackle dwelling off the Lorimer L stop for crazy cultural immersion in Rome’s Centro Storico district, where’d you have access to the same amount of pizza plus the Sistine Chapel.
Alas, white sand beaches and vaunted cultural institutions will likely remain the stuff of getaways for most of us, but it’s still nice to dream, isn’t it?
Follow Sam Blum on Twitter @Blumnessmonster