The most talked about City...

There's an active debate on NYC that started about the exhorbitant cost of living in Manahttan:

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/fsbo/fsbo-138-bway-williamsburg-009430

Here's my 2 cents:

I live in Manhattan (Upper East Side) and just moved here from San Francisco/Berkeley about a year ago.

My fiancee and I are planning to move somewhere else in a year.

Reasons for our move here:

1. It is the place to be for the Fashion industry
2. We've always been fond of Manhattan from our visits here when we were younger

What we've found is that it's a lot different when one has to live here. Manhattan is OK, but the big downsides are:

1. Filthiness of the city
2. Weather is unpleasant for half the year

#1 is the real deal breaker. I cannot believe how dirty the city is (the word ATROCIOUS is not enough to describe it). I've since acclimated myself a bit, but still cannot get over how foul the streets and subway are. I swear there is dirt buildup from the early 20th century in the grooves of escalator steps here. And what's up with the practice of leaving garbage bags on the streets for pickup? Yuck!!! I am already dreading the melange of summer heat and sidewalk garbage bags.

Having visited other MAJOR cities with similar or HIGHER population densities, entertainment and cultural offering (Rome, London, Paris, Tokyo) that are perfectly clean compared to New York, there is just no excuse. I would have no problem eating off the streets of Tokyo, but feel dirty walking down Broadway with three pairs of socks on.

I realized why I fell in love with Manhattan when I visited in my early twenties. One is that I, like many people at that age, was in my partying mode so of course I had a good time. Secondly, since I visited on business trips, most of my time around town was spent in the evening. Manhattan is a much more agreeable place at night ('cause you've probably had some wine and you can't see the dirt!).

Additionally, the LARGE majority of genuinely interesting, wonderful, outgoing and happy people we've met here are not native New Yorkers. New Yorkers are definitely more focused on their own lives. I'm not saying New Yorkers aren't nice people, but you have to draw it out of them. My observations are that they do not display the intellectual curiosity for other people's lives or the natural courtesy that one sees in cities on the West Coast and in the South.