Hello. I'm looking at either relocating to Boston or NYC as I have potential jobs in both places. Could anybody please tell me what the cost of living is like in and around these two cities...i.e. apartment, food, gas, taxes, etc? Also, any suggestions for safe and reasonable costing places to live in both Boston and NYC? Please advise. Thank you.

Need more info. Is it just for you, or do you have a family? You asked about gas prices, are you planning on keeping a car? You don't need one in either city. Garages run an average of $300 per month. Your neighborhood will depend on where you are working. If you get a job on the upper west side of Manhattan, you aren't going to want to live on the lower east side. Both cities are expensive. Where are you relocating from?

Hello.
I am relocating from S. Cali, however lived in Canada for a few years so am somewhat used to this cold weather. Hee. I am moving alone and have no family. My job includes a lot of travelling during the day so a car is necessary. Thanks, M

Come to Boston! There are actually apartments available at last, according to an article in today's Boston Globe. Most neighborhoods have enough parking (except right downtown, back Bay, South End, etc.). Lots of lovely places within easy commute. Where exactly is the new job -- in the city?

The cost of living is substantially less than Manhattan. Here's a cost-of-living comparer that I think says that the cost of living in NYC is 1.7 times that of living in Boston.

http://www.datamasters.com/cgi-bin/col.pl

This is unfortunately a somewhat vague question - not your fault but we need to know what you consider reasonable, what you like, etc etc. Broad summary-

New York is more expensive, bigger and more exciting.

Boston is still expensive, still exciting, but a lot easier to deal with. It is easier to drive in, but only in comparison to NYC. Compared to anywhere else its insane.

I've lived in both, and prefer Boston. Friends have lived in both, and prefer NYC. Both reasonable choices. It kind of comes down to whether you want 40 Thai restaurants, or 400. Personally I only eat at 3, so 40 doesn't bother me. And I like the fact that I can ski in 2 hours, whereas in 2 hours from NYC you can barely get to Westchester on Friday night.

I can't speak to NYC, but do live in the Boston Area. Went apt hunting last summer with a friend and didn't see anything less than $1700/month for a 2 bedroom apt. Based on my own experience (single and not home much)you could probably expect to pay another $150/month for heat. Another friend is now looking for an apt and is finding nothing. She has concluded that it would be better to buy a place. Depending on where you want to live, you would be hard pressed to find a decent place for less than $250,000.

In which direction would you be traveling for your job? Do you need access to Mass Pike? 128? 93? It makes a difference in recommending a reasonable/safe place to live.

I've lived in the Boston area since 1983, and even though my husband and I have both worked in Boston (he still does), we have never lived in the city. There are plenty of towns on the commuter rail and subway system (MBTA) that are quiet, safe, and more affordable than living in Boston would be. I am not much of a city person myself, but if you like some hussle and bustle but can't afford Boston, try Sommerville or Quincy. We found reasonable rents in Stoughton (a 30 minute commute by rail) and Mansfield (a 35 or 40 minute commute.) Bridgewater is another possibility, although the commute would be slightly longer. There are lots of towns to pick from--get a map of the MBTA. (www.mbta.com) Then you can check the classifieds for apartments in the Boston Globe and the Patriot Ledger online. (The Ledger covers more of the smaller towns.) Good luck, whatever you decide.

there are several relocation calculators available on the internet that should be helpful to you in comparing costs of living on both cities. (just do a search for "relocation calculator") i've lived in both boston and new york. personally, i much prefer new york. why? i found boston to be pretty homogenous; moreover, bostonians struck me as taking the city too seriously. i never did figure out why it was called "the hub"...

I live in NYC and I can tell you that the cost of living is very high. We have a very expensive and tight housing market. You probably will not be able to find a 1 bedroom apartment under $2,000 per month. In order to get a spacious place to live, you would have to live outside of Manhattan.

Food in supermarkets is fairly typical for the Northeast. There are high end grocery stores but there are also some decently priced stores. Of course, if you go to a restaurant, you can expect to pay quite a bit, unless you are eating at one of the many diners in the city.

Public transportation in NYC is excellent and you can get an unlimited metro card (1 week/$17). It would be insane to keep a car in Manhattan. You could own one in one of the other boros (Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island) where there is less of a fight for parking.

You also have to understand that the quality of life in New York is different from anywhere else. Walking down the street can really be a hassle. You have to deal with crowds of people and "sidewalk rage", you have to deal with crossing the street with oncoming cars that don't believe they have to stop for the pedestrian and cars that sit in traffic and honk their horns for no reason (which doesn't sound like an issue, except that it reverberates off the buildings and makes more irritating noise).

NYC is a great city of diversity, but also a very tough place to live. This is not meant to discourage you, just to let you know that you must have a thick skin to live here.

Thank you everybody for your responses so far. They have been really helpful. Just to answer some questions....
Overall, I do prefer smaller cities that have a lot of culture, history, and outdoors activities. And I love being by the water.
I believe that I will be working in the city itself and will be travelling within a radius of 40 miles away. Not sure about the exact details yet.

In general, I'm still wondering whether the cost of living is more in NY or in Boston. I keep hearing many different things. I am just speaking in terms of apartment rent, keeping a car, food, taxes, and daily expenses. I would still appreciate any advice.

Any suggestions of some websites to search for apartments in both Boston and NYC???

Thanks again for the help.

Cheers,
M

M-

I think you've received a lot of good replies. I would disagree about Boston being homogeneous, but it is more so than NYC.

Basically, from what you say you like, I think you'd prefer Boston. Cost of living is significantly lower than NYC. Which means its still high. Basically put, $1700 gets you a small 2 bedroom apt in a nice neighborhood in Boston, and a small studio apt in a similar neighborhood in NYC. If you are driving a lot, metro Boston is much easier to drive in.

When you say "NYC" do you mean Manhattan or can you live in the Bronx, per se?

If the former, I'd say Boston would be decidedly cheaper and less hassle, especially if you will be driving a car every day.

For Boston, check the boston.com web site and then go to apartments. That should give you a good feel for availability and price range. If I were going to actually live in the city, my choice would be charlestown or the south end and that would be dependent on where my office was actually located. If I were living outside the city, I would go west toward Watertown and Newton. I have lived west and north of the city, west has far less traffic.

Mike,

By NYC, I mean I could live in the city and also on the suburbs as long as it is a safe area. Any suggestions?

Cheers,
M

m, i should've clarified that i recently moved back to manhattan after spending 10 years in boston so i've been thinking about this a bit. by the sounds of it, you might do better in boston b/c (1) it _is_ incredibly expensive to live in manhattan---your $2,000/month one-bedroom here will probably cost you $1,500 in boston (and it'll be larger). there's also the heinous broker fee to deal with in nyc. they're generally 15% of your annual rent. (if you do decide to live in nyc, check out rent-direct.com to find a no fee apartment.) (2) it's much easier to keep your car in boston (i'm paying $200+/month to keep mine in an open, secured lot. i had my own parking space outside my building in boston.) (3) boston most definitely has a small city feel---think san francisco but colder---and it's easier to zip out to the mountains or ocean on the weekends. in addition to checking out the boston.com site for apartments, check out "the phoenix," which is boston's version of the village voice. other areas that you might enjoy (which are within a 15 minute drive to downtown boston): cambridge (the best collection of used bookstores in one place/harvard square); somerville (inman square, davis square); jamaica plain; brookline, arlington (a bit further out). good luck.

The NYC suburbs is certainbly an option although in some cases it will cost as much (or more) than living in Boston. Things tend to be a bit pricier in the nicer suburbs on the NY state side than they are in the NJ suburbs. Right now, e.g. gas is in the low $1.31 plus range in NJ and typically 20 cents higher in the Westchester suburbs. Do some in person research before choosing a suburb - the age of the population varies widely as does the nature of highway access and how congested the highwars are in a given area. It will help if you know in advance where you'll be doing most of your driving - this has a major impact on how much time you'll have to spend in the car. Don't settle in the NY state NYC suburbs of you're seeing clients mostly in NJ and vice versa. If you want advice on the NJ suburbs just email me direct by removing the #$% from my email address. I relocated to NJ just outside NYC two years ago in circumstances similar to yours (needed my car and was driving regularly to see clients). I did abundant research and can offer some advice specific to NJ. I can also comment that apartment searching via the Internet is very tough and not terribly productive. I finally took a few days off from the last job and came here in person, buying a stack of newspapers every morning and searching that way.

New York!
N.Y is a world class city with unlimited and endless choices and possiblities.Boston is a small town in love with itself always defending its cold and indifferant attitude about N.Y. city and others.

Boston is not cold and most don"t live in the inner city. Forced out by thre rich yuppies and Euros, the greedy real estate people(not
bostonians, mostly) who forced the elderly folk out of their apartments to turn them into office and retail space and that turned the once village like Newbury street into a mall. Gone are the cobbler, tailor, grocer, chineese laundry who could no longer pay the astrnomical rent increases. My work place is made up of newcomers-nome from the Boston area.

Any other suggestions? I'm in the same situation. Let's keep this one going! Thanks Topper!

Tina and others, do you have any specific questions?

As far as things that make the cost of living higher in NYC, not only is housing much more expensive, but the sales tax is higher (about 8 percent vs 5 in MA) and applied to more things (in MA, clothing and groceries aren't taxed).

Since your job requires a car, living in Manhattan is probably out of the question, so your question becomes, do you live in Boston or in a distant part of NYC, outside Manhattan? Seems to me that by living outside of Manhattan , you're losing any of the advantges that NYC might have over Boston.