The 10 Most Common Reasons Why People Move To New York City

Katherine Ripley • April 12, 2016

In case you haven’t heard, the population of New York City is still growing, despite the rising rent prices and the rodent infestation. Let’s take a look at the 10 most common reasons why people keep on moving here:

1. Job Opportunities

If you’re trying to work in media, there are two big players in the country: LA or NYC, and you’ll probably pick whichever one you’re already closer to. This is the city of artists with big dreams. You could also be someone who moved here for an offer from Goldman Sachs, but if so, you’re probably not the type of person whom this list is really for.

2. FOMA

If you suffer from Fear Of Missing Out, New York is the best city in the country to quell that fear. You can stay out until 5 am every night, sleep when you’re dead, and discover something new literally every day. Missing out while you’re living here is a choice, not a product of circumstance.

3. The Challenge

It takes true grit to live in this city. Rents are ridiculously high, job searches are months long, but people move to this city because they want to face those challenges and overcome them. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.

4. Status

woman struggles cover — [Julian Dunn/Flickr]

You want to be the envy of all your friends because you live in New York City. None of them have enough passion or determination or grit to make here. You’re more urban, you’re more cultured—whatever reasons you want to come up with to justify your superiority.

5. The Romantic Ideal

Movies and television have given us a certain idea about New York—it will always be classic and modern at the same time. You want to feel like you’re living in a movie, but you’re writing the script as you go along.

6. Freedom

New York City offers you freedom because it’s a place where you can be as weird as you want to be, and nobody will look twice. Get tattoos, dye your hair purple, start a business selling soaps that you make in your apartment. Literally every lifestyle is acceptable here.

7. Eternal Youth

friends

You don’t ever have to grow up in New York. You can stay single forever and keep on staying out until 5am even when you’re in your 60s, if you want to. There are no rules for how you live your life here.

8. Cultural Diversity

In New York City you can travel without leaving home. You can eat food, see art, listen to music and watch performances from different cultures all around the world, and you don’t ever have to leave this city.

9. Getting Far Away From Home

No matter where you’re from, when you move to New York City you feel like you’re a world away from home (or what you used to call home). This city is so huge, your family won’t be able to find you unless you really want them to. You can keep them at a distance. This is your space.

10. Being Part Of Something Bigger

When you live in NYC, you get the sense that history could happen any day here. And when it happens, you want to be a part of it. You want to be able to say you were there.

Cover photo credit: Stacey Bramhall/Flickr