Rent!

New York City has been known as an ideal place to live. It has plenty of night clubs, tons of shops with designer labels, some of the grandest landmarks in the world. However, nowadays, all that luxury comes at a high price. Rents are increasing, renters incomes are going down, and the number of rent-controlled units is shrinking as elderly tenants die or just leave them.

According to the most recent Housing and Vacancy survey, the number of apartments for working-class and poor New Yorkers has gone down by at least 20 percent since 1993. Since that year as well, there are over 112,000 fewer apartments in New York City that rent for less than $500 a month. The median rent for all units in NYC has actually increased by 18 percent to around $593. Victor Bach, a housing policy researcher for the Community Service Society insists that something must be done to prevent low-income people from being evicted due to rent inflation.

Many people dream big of moving to New York City and making it big. Everyone knows that if you can make it there, then you can make it anywhere. However, all must also remember that this city is expensive, not cheap. It does always sound exciting to live in the Big Apple, but if you can't find the money to support yourself and pay rent, then you might run into serious problems. You must always consider how your marginal benefits of living in the big city measure up against the marginal costs of living in an expensive city as well. My advice would be to take a good look at the musical Rent and see how tough it is for some of the characters who hadn't even paid a year's worth of rent at the start of the show. How much would living in NYC really cost someone and would it really be worth it?