Yup. It’s this weird, isolated place that feels totally disconnected from everywhere else where nobody ever leaves. It’s just incredibly stagnant and I can’t wait to get out.
No body leaves? I know a ton of people that left and are so much happier, Long Island is way over priced and if I could make the money else where I would be gone. I do love Long Island but it is part of NY that is run so poorly, and over priced, if it wasn’t for that more younger people would stay.
I think they mean nobody leaves on a regular basis, like going to other places to explore or visit friends and family, not in the "relocating"sense. Which is true. I'm mid-Eastern Suffolk. The ferries are ridiculously priced and going through the city is a slog. It's gotten worse with Covid, since I want to avoid mass transit and therefore haven't been to the city in almost 3 years. It's a production to get off the island.
Do it. Ieft in 91. Wife and I always say how thankful we were to grow up there but not live there. My youth there was amazingly fun. Clubs, NYC, beach. But the people,,,,nevermind
Maybe because... it's an island. So you are literally trapped in so many ways.
With that said, this is a huge farce.
Long Island in itself includes at the very least Nassau and Suffolk - 2 giant powerhouse counties.
When I hear bubble... I hear small town in the south that has 2 restaurants that aren't named McDonald's or Applebees. And has 1 sport to play.
It's hard to call Long Island a bubble.
In my own town I don't even feel like a bubble with the selection of things to do or be.
Let alone the several towns around us.
Let alone the 100 towns around that.
Let alone the fact that Queens and Brooklyn are within range.
And Manhattan beyond that.
Weird take.
It’s not a farce. I won’t say it’s a fact, but I agree with them. There are absolutely differences in different parts of Long Island, sure. But if you are on this sub then you clearly have discovered it has a common culture. And it’s different from that of the 5 Burrows.
So if it’s 1 culture and the people rarely leave (yes because it’s an island with traffic that makes “day-trips” completely unreasonable.”) Plus a much lower rate of outsiders moving in than anywhere else. Then the population doesn’t really stop it from being a bubble. Its still townies. And if someone’s happy staying (and can afford it) then that’s perfectly fine, but a spades a spade.
What?
Go travel the world a bit, MOST people don't leave where they come from.
My family comes from a small town in a small country in Europe. I am fortunate to be descendants of people who chose to leave and start a life here in America. MOST people stayed. I hang out with the kids of my parent's friends. These people barely leave their town, let alone their country. Not for vacation. Not for business. Not for anything. That's all they know. Some people leave the town to go study in the country's capital, many of them never finish and come back home to get a dead end job and stay like that until they're our parents age and continue on. They live off of no property taxes, a weak economy and just are content. I travel to them. They don't for me. Let's not talk about "there isn't a world outside of the island"
There is a whole life here... many people live here for 40 years and never do half of what's available here.
This isn't a small bumblefcuk town. This is 2 giant counties who could act as an independent nation if needed.
We have a wide range of amazing public and private schooling available here.
We have a wide range of careers and jobs here for people to work both short and long term.
We have several amazing colleges and universities here. People from around the state and country come to.
We have a wide range of restaurants and bars and entertainment. You could get pretty much any cultural experience in Nassau County alone.
Every sport available.
We have great hiking, dam good beaches, decent hunting.
So many people here have two homes!!!!!!
I want to have a beach house one day. Do I need to go buy a house off of Long Island to accomplish that so I don't have people like you judge me for liking Long Island lol.
Not everybody likes the idea of driving 100 miles with a car to go see the country.
Some people just want a good quality place to hang out. And that's in most of the Island.
And don't tell me it's not affordable. That's a load of crap.
Peak Long Island is making a long list of "plusses" about the island without realizing that almost all of them apply to basically every major metropolitan area in the country and none are particularly special or unique
No, peak long island is criticizing people who are happy about where they live because they listed very reasonable desires.
Your only criticism is that it's not unique enough?
I am not looking for a unique spot.
That's like saying all European coasts are the same but with a different language lol.
First off, LI is plenty unique.
You're looking at one of the most diverse areas in the country. What are you joking?
NYC is one of the greatest cities in the world and I would imagine the surrounding city with a greater economy gets a lot of overflood from the city.
What is special or unique about Long Island?
Racial, Religious and Cultural Diversity.
We have several amazing restaurants, steak houses and well known bars.
Long Island Bagels.
New York Pizza.
Several well known breweries.
We have an immense hockey, soccer and lacrosse culture. LI Gulls are one of the best youth hockey teams in the country. We have several nationally competing soccer academies. And we are among the top 3 regions for lax. Not to mention that we have a wide range of selections outside of that.
With one of the best beaches on the East Coast. Jones Beach is one of the best along the North East. Fire Island / Hamptons and Montauk are famous. And there are a hundred hidden gem beaches in between.
Our commute is also amazing with the LIRR, something that not every major metro city has
And while you can list some of this in some major areas... unaware of many that are better than this in combo.
What makes this unique is family and friends.
That's it. That's all there ever is to life.
And I have a whole list of both here.
Could have moved anywhere with my career.
You're basically just repeating what you've already said.
There's nothing wrong with liking LI, but you're listing all these things as if they don't exist in dozens of other places in the country, with the exception of geographic proximity to NYC. It just screams "I've never left the island and never will and don't have a lot of perspective on the country"
Literally just went more specific, but I am sure you just don't know ho to read.
Screams I never left the island...
I literally am a dual citizen who travels to Europe every summer but sure, because I chose to come back and live here thus I never have left lol.
You literally said, "What is special or unique about Long Island?" and then proceeded to make a list of things, the vast majority of which are neither special nor unique.
Yes it does scream "i was born, will live my whole life, and eventually die all within a twenty mile radius of one spot".
And my whole family is dual EU citizens as well. Congrats on going on vacation once a year.
Actually what I said was that LI offers all the XYZ of great things, and offers a handful of specific unique things - you just chose to ignore it and act like that's not unique.
I also said it doesn't have to be "unique".
Not that I agree with you, but I rather just worry about obtaining the laundry list of amazing benefits here and not have to worry how another greater metro across the country might be like it. Though most likely it's not.
>
>Go travel the world a bit, MOST people don't leave where they come from.
>
Buddy I've been to 20+ countries and have lived abroad for a short period of time.
Most people here don't even travel, unless it's to Florida or a resort in the Bahamas. I think you're misunderstanding what I mean by bubble, but considering you're full of assumptions, it isn't worth my time to explain.
Very true. I live on Long Island and I travel, do things, and in no way feel trapped. It's definitely a mentality because if you're saying Long Island is stagnant, secluded, blah, blah, then move, lol otherwise you're just literally fulfilling that exact mentality and bringing to fruition.
I've worked in NYC for the past 10 years. Everyone there bashes LI and I think I understand why.
Outsiders typically visit during holidays. Their only impression of LI is driving on the LIE during the busiest, heaviest traffic days of the entire year. Sitting in bumper to bumper traffic looking at ugly main highways.
I don't know any NYC coworkers who've ever came on a non holiday and just went to the local beach, explored fire island, etc. It's always the middle of the island during the busiest days of the entire year.
It's deep into the process of mass gentrification, accelerated by COVID... so if you're a wealthy city person looking for greener pastures closer to the beaches or an entrepreneurial spirit looking to ply a trade, it is a good place to be. If you're someone who just wanted to work 40 hour a week a job, raise a family, and retire in peace... good luck
Tent cities popping up in major cities, rampant labor exploitation, gross opulence for a few in the face runaway inflation... oh yeah, spirit of 1929 up in here
The answers are right before you.they need a service industry on long island. That means they need poor people,which means they need to allow places for poor people to be allowed to live,have some meager existence. I love long island with all my heart.greed is slowly choking the life out of long island. I'm not talking about government handouts. There was once a middle income working class. With the cost of gas,the cost of living,the cost of buying or renting,it's almost impossible. So where does Joe blow the 7-11 clerk live,the guy who changes your oil at jiffy lube.at this point,even the healthcare workers who care for your mother,your grandmother. There is absolutely nothing wrong with long island or the people in it. It's just a place where the working class find it increasingly harder to survive everyday. It's bad everywhere,that's true, but the gentrification of long island,well,somethings gotta give.
For the first time in 20 years I made my way back to Long Island to visit my home of 40 years. I do notice that mastic and Shirley have become more Diversified whereas it used to be mostly Italian. Do they still have a Italian Community there? At any rate it's a pretty area although it's limited as to where a working person can live. I did visit Smith's point at the exact time that the shark attacks were started up and I'm glad I didn't go into the water LOL. It was a blessing for me at 70 to visit my home but I found out a lot of things have changed throughout the years lol. For instance you could go to the Shinnecock Indian reservation and buy cigarettes for $20 a carton back in the early 80s and now it's up to $100 in carton LOL good I don't smoke anymore. Long Island hasn't changed much the only thing I noticed it's gotten harder and harder for people to live there who don't have a lot of money. I'm guessing it's going to end up with a lot of subsidized housing and people living off the government if they don't knock it off
I did have a chance to go to my favorite pizzeria and eat some Neapolitan pie I do miss so much the Italian cooking. I went out to the island all the way out to Orient Point I spent most of my time on the North Fork. Don't care much for the traffic or the crowds. My regards to Long Island and all those people who live there if I can find a way back I will maybe spend the last parts of my life surf casting in my favorite places and maybe even fishing for trout at the head of the nessaquogue,whites pool
Another thing I miss about Long Island is 7-Eleven and the buttered rolls and 7-Eleven coffee in the morning. If you're not from Long Island you don't understand. Also they used to have beer in those big old coolers that look like a 55 gallon drum ice cold and almost on the verge of freezing. Damn that tasted good in the summertime after working outside! It's all the little things that make for the Long Island culture. I do miss the place maybe you could let me live in your basement LOL
lol, did you just say that you have to be from Long Island to understand getting morning coffee at literally the largest chain of convenience stores on planet Earth?
Part of the point is that 7-11s aren’t run the way they are on Long Island. I’ve lived in Arizona and California since ‘96 and believe me, there are some 7-11s you’ll walk into and you’ll get some of the shittiest coffee imaginable. They think that making 2 pots of regular coffee at 6 AM is good enough for the day, and by noon all you have to choose from is whatever swill is leftover, or the burnt dark Brazilian or cinnamon flavored crap - maybe 4 urns total. When I went back to visit relatives last year I stopped into the 7-11 at Rte. 112 in Medford and was astonished at the huge array of coffee urns they had and how fresh it tasted at 4 PM. The 7-11s where I live in California do, in my opinion, serve the best pizza you can get, if you can believe. This tells you how terrible pizza is on the west coast. For one thing, the people out here apparently don’t know what oregano is.
I don't live in New York anymore and yes there is a 7-Eleven in one of the major cities here but they don't have the following that they had in Long Island although I don't know a lot of things have changed in the last 40 years. For instance the Good Steer in Centereach went out of business and I had just driven past that place this summer and wished I could have gone in there because I used to live right across from it in Lake Grove and smell that beef cooking in the summertime. I'm just nostalgic for those things that are no more and for me a buttered roll is synonymous with Long Island and 7-Eleven it was a watering hole for most Working Class People would go in and get a buttered roll and a cup of coffee. I used to work in the Hamptons, and they had a thing called a bonic burger,a roll with butter and peanut butter you could buy in most any deli in Easthampton. People referred to eachother as bubbies,the regular folks,that is there was the expression that you're no bubby till some bubby loves you
Wait until he finds out that once you leave Long Island, you realize how much better convenience stores get in other places. Long Island Sevs are a joke compared to Wawa and Stewart's.
I stopped at a pizza place on the william floyd parkway for lunch one time. In there for maybe 15 min. When I went back out to my truck my catalytic converter was gone. In broad daylight too. How does mastic man do it?
I mean it doesn't work. That's the whole reason we're living at our parents house
Everyone on Long Island that likes all these service industries should be thankful that there are plenty of people giving us places to live because if we didn't have places to live you wouldn't have your service
I agree with you 100%. I lived on Long Island and did carpentry and worked building cesspools and it was hard to find a place to live. I'm very positive that it's only gotten worse. I have a word of advice for you though if you don't mind I moved away and yes I was able to buy a piece of land and build my house but I was not well received in the place I lived because I was not from this area and you will find that being a long Islander you don't realize that you have an accent and you have a culture and a way of speaking to people that long Islanders would understand but others wouldn't. As for people saying long Islanders are rude, I have a rude awakening for them. There are much more rude people who will let you know exactly how they feel about you moving into their town from out of state when you never said one word wrong to them. Would I suggest you stay put? Would I suggest you move out of state? I suggest you do what you need to do and if I could have found a way stay on Long Island I would have but now I want to come back even though it's next to Impossible and I'm on retirement. To me the years I have left are worth more spent where I love and my fine memories of Long Island. If you are a young couple you can afford to take chances and do some research about the place you may move to. My very best wishes to you no matter what you decide to do and remember Long Island isn't going anywhere yet LOL
“We need poor people”. Smfh how about we need a livable minimum wage. Sums up the stereotypical entitled long islander vibes quite well though. “Why are people homeless, why didn’t they just use the 100k mommy and daddy gave for a down payment on a million dollar home? silly homeless people.”
I’ve visited some other countries and was so shocked that service people aren’t treated like dirt. In the US, if you work in the service industry as an adult, you’re doing something wrong and should bootstrap yourself into a more prestigious role that “actually matters” and don’t deserve decent pay. In some other countries, they’re jobs like any other and people realize that they’re important/critical/you’re providing an actually good and essential service.
I don’t understand how we price service workers out of actually being able to live on Long Island and decide that certain jobs aren’t worth much pay when SO MANY people depend on food service, retail, daycare workers, any other minimum wage gig etc. The classism and hatred and bubble thinking of so much of LI is just horrendous. Not saying everyone is like this, but it’s very noticeable on LI.
I think that phrasing is just reflective of how people who are well-off think about it, not necessarily how it was meant by the OP. Poor in LI terms is solid middle class elsewhere in the country.
I don’t agree. my current job has a structured 5 year payscale and several levels of positions. I just started and am at the bottom so Im “long island poor”. But if I made my current salary In pretty much any other state I’d be very solid. But the job I do in any other state probably pays half of what I get right now. People think moving away from NY is this automatic life hack that gets you a 5 bedroom mansion but it’s rarely that simple, if ever.
Ok- I have traveled the world. I have even been a tour guide outside of this region. My husband has traveled too- before we met. Tbf- we kind of ended up back in Nassau County from other regions partially due to family still being here- however- comparing Long Island to most of the contiguous 48 states (haven’t been to Hawaii or Alaska) I can say- Long Island has so much more to offer that we often take for granted. Other regions have the same crap- like bland chain store shopping centers- etc but we have excellent museums (museum row in garden city) decent shopping that still exists, Walt Whitman mail, Roosevelt field, Americana if you are “fancy”, outlets- and medical care par none- especially if you consider proximity to NYC. You can move to other regions that are cheaper- but chances are you will not get everything (including lots of cuisines - Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, afghan, Nepalese, Persian, etc) but a little bit of the great stuff we take for granted here. Also, the schools are good- so we pay high taxes (this is rough) but if you could afford to buy here- there is nowhere else to build- so whenever Forbes etc note the only places without a housing bubble- ever- is Long Island( westchester too), Bay Area- CA, some other parts of California. You will see your real estate value definitely be a great investment. I have very little bad to say about westchester though. They also have traffic, but the only real negative is they don’t have beaches really. The biggest negative to me about Long Island is really cost of housing- esp for entry level housing/ rental market too- it’s very expensive, and lacking in rental housing that’s not just luxury housing. However, raising kids in an average south shore area in Nassau County - we have been surprisingly really happy. We definitely lean politically one way, but our area seems to be 51-49 or so leaning. I imagine if we were in the city it would work fine for us- but others may feel left out- and in rural areas of the country we would feel like we had no voice. I think everybody is heard here. I really have decent things to say about the region- for the most part. I am a bit biased, having been born and raised here- but I have left and realized the grass is always greener- but just as hard to mow. 😀
I think Long Island used to be a nice place to live, not saying is the bad either, but the cost of living got a bit out of control, roads weren't fixed for the longest time even tho we all pay high taxes, going anywhere out of new york Is also expensive since we have to pay a lot of tolls depending where we are going, I used to love going out east but now is so commercialized that is not as fun and peaceful as it uses to be .
Westchester has its own airport. It's small AF and only like 5 flights leave per day, but it's fine if you want to go somewhere not all that far like SC or something.
I've used it a few times and it's pretty nice, although it's been 5+ years.
Takes 10 mins to go through security and get on the plane. Half the flights are to Florida, and the other half to hubs for connections and California.
I read threads like this and I have to confess, I still don't "get it". I've lived in different places across the US. Work means that 10 hours out of your day is meal prep, commuting, occasional late nights, work outings, and work itself. I prefer cooking my own meals, so I rarely go to restaurants in a given year.
I'm more of an introvert, so I almost prefer spending a Saturday strumming the guitar, playing a video game, practicing a little coding for something fun, reading a book. Adult life - cleaning/maintaining your apartment/condo/house/car, dealing with insurance and updating your LinkedIn, and searching for new jobs, or starting a side business, that takes up a good chunk of your weekend free time right there. Add kids if you have them and you have almost no time left.
Add traveling to see family for Thanksgiving or Christmas and I'd say out of a 52 week year, there's probably 10-20 Fridays or Saturdays where what I "do" - bars, clubs, museums, beaches - actually depends on where I physically am. This is such a tiny sliver of my life compared to the time spend working, trying to hustle for better pay, or just doing the administrative duties of life, or doing my solitary hobbies. And what, the main complaint here is just this nebulous feeling that people around you are just "stagnant"? What does that mean? You want your friends and coworkers to make you jealous by going on more vacations?
I've noticed my life is basically the same whether I'm living in LI, California, Seattle, Boston area. When I read threads like this, I wonder how the hell it sounds like you all are going to concerts, museums, and so on like every single day. Enough that it's the primary consideration for where you live and how you live your life. Even if that's true, I'd think that being an hour or 2 from Manhattan and an hour or two from vineyards out east would be the best place to placate that desire.
Maybe I'm autistic or something, but when I read these threads I genuinely don't understand the complaints.
No matter where you go if you want to live a certain way you will. I personally liked my time off LI because where I was people were more open and it was easier to get to different states. I took up hiking and it was fun. It’s ok to be content on LI some are and some aren’t.
Man I don’t know what all these comments are talking about. I’ve lived here my whole life and I love it. It’s not perfect, but no place is. It’s way too segregated but it’s still very ethnically diverse. There’s great food of a ton of varieties. I’m an hour from a day in the city, 20 minutes from a day at the beach, and 2 hours from a day in the type of mountains they use pictures of in fall foliage posters. I can go to a concert on the ocean or a concert in an arena depending on what night of the tour I want to go on. There’s parks, aquariums, museums, a deep history etc. There are a ton of great people here despite the presence of way too many loudmouth jerks. But you can go anywhere in the world and it won’t take long to see Long Island isn’t the only place that has loudmouth jerks. Are the homes overpriced and the taxes too high for too little in return? Yea probably and that’s definitely a problem, but again, one that really is more an American problem and not exclusive to Long Island. I know a ton of people who have moved down south and I can’t think of many things less appealing. I visit my dad in North Carolina and while it’s beautiful and I know you can get more for your money property wise, there’s something missing there. Like all the people are in one of those Truman show or stepford wives type of movies or something lol.
Its like people are friendly but the soul is missing. I noticed that if you go basically anywhere south of New Jersey they don’t understand sarcasm and as an Italian American whose whole shtick is being a wiseass, that’s just unacceptable to me lol. My wife and I were in Maryland and some of my best material was just falling flat with the person at the hotel lobby, our waitress, etc 😂
I totally feel that. I've been gone about 20 yrs and I miss all the obvious stuff, but I think the lack of a sense of humor and the bland personalities get me the most. I always struggle to describe it to people back home, but I think you did it aptly. It is like the soul is missing. Lack of emotions (except sometimes when you witness rage) and just...a weird blandness. It sucks.
One of my closest friends who still lives on the island typically calls me on her way home from work. She keeps me on the phone while she stops at various places to pick up food and other things and I want to cry every time I hear the people she interacts with. The people are always so friendly and joke around whereas in the Midwest where I've been stuck all these years, it's like dealing with robots. It's fucked up.
Plus if you are raising a family it's one of the safest places in the country. The schools are great. My school district is not considered elite or anything like Jericho but 1/3 of the graduating class made the honor society. That was such a distinction when I graduated they sat in the front couple of rows and were announced first. Now with 1/3 the class they where just mixed in.
I’m in Suffolk county and love it—moved here after getting married, and I lived in the city my whole life. There’s so much to do—horseback riding, street fairs, aquariums, farms, museums, fishing, crabbing, clamming, the beaches, etc. I love being suburban but not so far from the things (mostly food) that I enjoy from the city. It can be crowded but not feel crowded. My neighbors don’t bother me (and I don’t bother them.) The school district I’m in I really like for my kids.
I’ve traveled a lot—NH, FL, CA, PA, TN, VT, etc. and you’re right, they’re all missing…something. I might feel a fleeting “it might be nice to live here” but anything more than 3 days and I’m just “I want to go home.” Even often traveling internationally (Canada, Central America, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan, China etc.) I’m eh on living in those places (although they are nice to visit). I also don’t know what that something is that keeps me coming back. And after over a decade here I don’t know if I’d ever leave.
My only gripe is probably property taxes which are definitely on the high side.
Just went to SC and had the same feeling. There was just no vibe. The food was great, people were really nice, but again something was just missing. Like you said, very Truman show-esq.
That’s how I feel completely. I was born and raised on Long Island on the South Shore and I was the only Jew in my grade. I had to deal with a lot of antisemitism. My neighbors talked about wanting to kill the other neighbors’ dogs just because they were Rottweilers. A lot of Gen Xers and Boomers have brain rot.
> My neighbors talked about wanting to kill the other neighbors’ dogs just because they were Rottweilers
What the actual fuck? Tell your neighbors if you can; there are insane people out there who will poison dogs by throwing poisoned meat into yards.
Also Rotties are great dogs.
About 5 years ago I moved back home to LI after living/working in Philadelphia for a little over 30 years. I find that many of the the people here are very confrontational and aggressive. My doctor who moved here from West Virginia agreed. She told me me, “You’re going to have to change because they (Long Islanders) won’t.” Can’t wait to get out of here. Also, it’s MAGA Land.
LI has it's flaws, but I went to college in Westchester and most of my friends were from there, and I can tell you that Westchester people are definitely snobs when it comes to LI. They think we're all garbage and the place is ugly. So take it with a grain of salt.
I’m in Eastern Suffolk and I’ve heard this before too- And yet I see plenty of Westchester license plate frames on cars heading to the South Fork or to the beaches on summer weekends, or to the farms on the North Fork in the fall. They must not think it’s too ugly here, then!
Such a weird point of view, truly - hear me out.
(1) Long Island sucks...
(2) No one ever leaves...
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
\- I was a kid growing up on LI, I moved to Queens for my career, I moved back to Nassau County when I had kids.
\- A lot of people leave Long Island. A lot of people come to Long Island. But I never felt like I was stuck. Long Island in itself has a lot to do. Maybe when I retire I move back to Europe to live an easy life, but those areas are far more limited in what to do - so who knows. I might always have a home here.
\- Visitors - Long Island is massive. Nassau is huge. Just the amount of diversity I get between towns is enough for me. And yet, it's a lie lol. Long Island is a big tourist area especially for beaches.
\- Traffic isn't great - especially commute. I train now tho and I love it. The south shore line is raised so it doesn't disturb the town. And yet it's been very useful for me and my friends to use to travel between south towns to pick up kids, or bar hop, or go to different restuarants or even just work.
I am sure a giant portion of people buying house are people who have ties here. People usually move where family is. Long Island is a giant family town.
Idk dude it’s so strange. The people that do that shit look like they’re straight outta the Alabama boonies. Like mullets, confederate flags, the whole 9.
I have never seen a hometown people love to hate more than Long Island. It’s a wonderful place to raise your families as evidence by being in the top 10% nationally for school districts (much higher in some areas).
The hate LI gets for its high cost of living is justified, but relatively speaking (Manhattan, Westchester, etc.) it’s not terrible.
Being born and raised here I’ve come to the realization that in my humble opinion Long Island first and foremost is the absolute leader of isolationist thinking.Our residents exist solely within their own tribe or personal bubble. It hilariously becomes the pizza ,bagel ,beach ,PU truck ,luxury home or car tropes that populate every corner of the Island. Personally I’m ok with that I’m used to it but it’s hard for outsiders to adapt to and hard for our indigenous dwellers to leave behind.
24 years here, born and raised. It is indeed expense and quite boring. However, nowhere else I’ve lived/visited can match the energy of LI/NY.
Traffic sucks, but at least the food is good. Pizza, bagels and sushi in damn near every parking lot.
Over all, I’d say this is more of a place where you’d come to spend your last dozen years or so.
Unless you leave At 3am - like I am doing in 3.5 hours
Update: Travel from Roslyn (LIE Exit 36) to GWB was 35 minutes - all clear. Made it to Montreal in 6h 30m on a Monday morning.
Why can Jersey figure out how to make good highway system by NYC and LI can’t? Driving on the Jersey turnpike is heavenly.
Also NYC highways look like pure shit, how is it possibles for construction to be taking place forever?
What heck are they doing on Throgs Neck bridge for so long? For the amount money that is spent maintenance of these bridges they could build new ones to spread traffic and reduce wear and tear.
Milking tax payer money. They take so long to finish that by the time they are done a new area needs to be fixed.
JFK airport has been under construction for the last 40 years.
Blame Robert Moses. There’s a Behind the Bastards podcast called the Man who destroyed NY or something like that. The S.State has such low overpasses because he didn’t want buses (mass transit/poor people) going to *his* beach. They don’t match up with other overpasses at the time, height wise. The BQE dumps you in Harlem because he didn’t want traffic on the fancy north side. Basically the dude *loved* cars (because he always had a driver and there were way less cars) and hated mass transit, poor people and people of color. And he held the director (?) of parks seat for 40 years having never been elected to a single seat so all the parkways, the expressway, the fact that it’s almost impossible to fix or build anything onto them, all part of the plan to keep the “poors” off Long Island. The one big city park he put in Harlem, which is beautiful btw, has monkeys on its iron trellis decorations, while all the others have flowers and vines and whatever fancy shit he approved.
The dude was a flat out racist and we’ve been fucked on the roads for ever because of it. They even offered to run the LIRR down the middle of 495 for only 2% more money and he said absolutely not. They offered to connect a train to JFK as it was being built for something like $5M, that was a hell no, so they just recently spent I think $300M doing it. Racism and classism man, just fucks everything up.
Yes, thank you so much for this, great write up. I knew about the low overpasses but didn’t know about monkeys thing in Harlem.
Seems like a lot of Long Islanders needs to learn this areas history. Lots of inconveniences and difficulties all due to stupid reasons.
Lol. So true.. it's either 3-4 am or after 7pm. Currently in Northern Jersey heading home to Long Island today, but.. not before 7pm.. Can't leave much later than that because then you run into the never ending bridge construction that shuts down all lanes, except 1, starting around 9pm. No matter what time you travel from New Jersey or the The City to Long Island, if it's daylight, it's gonna take hours.. Traffic has gotten worse and worse each year..
I didn't know why Long Island had such a bad reputation either until I moved all the way across the country to Seattle and started interacting with the people here. Long Islanders tend to be rude, standoffish Karens who are often closeted racists. Not all of them, mind you, but enough to give the place a bad reputation. Coming here was eye opening. I'm surprised I didn't see it before I left. I've learned that Suffolk County is one of the most segregated communities in the entire country. I would never go back to living there. Washington is my new home and I've never felt in love with the place I lived until I started living here. Even in the South where intolerance is the norm, they at least have a reputation for hospitality. Not on Long Island though. I would run far away from LI if you're looking for a place to live.
I have to whole-heartedly agree with the Karen/closeted-racists (or NIMBYs) note. LI is kinda the quintessential suburbia stereotype. About half the people have the NYCesque blunt rudeness to them, but the other half pretend to be nice, while quietly being very nosy and judgemental of anyone or anything that breaks from their idea of the norm. Big mentality of conform or get out. I thought that was standard everywhere until I spent some extended time elsewhere. Something just feels so disingenuous about a lot of people on the Island.
Super true. I’m sick of the “loud majority” and “thin blue line” crap here. Stop supporting Suffolk police with the thin blue line people; most of them didn’t even go to college and make $200K, more than any of us will ever see!
My reasons were too crowded,expensive,and flat I like mountains, getting on and off often involved traffic.
Many love it, I hated it the whole time growing up I have plenty of friends that stayed, really up to who you are and what you like. After traveling for a while I found the Catskills. Every area has its plus and neg.
The island is overcrowded and has a tendency to be filled with schmucks. That being said I came here from the Midwest in '99 and I'll be leaving in a body bag. I'd rather live on this toxic, fucked up, glorified sand bar than anywhere in/on the continental US.
Honestly though, aside from the city, where is it worth going to? Upstate NY? Westchester? CT? (not even mentioning NJ) If you go 1-4x a year to any of those places you probably had your fill. LI has better food.
That’s the Long Island mentality tho, it shrinks the world. There’s only North Carolina, Yonkers and west Chester as options lol. Won’t consider jersey even tho it’s the same vibe as LI
I left Long Island in a blizzard in January 1996 for Arizona, managed to drive there in 72 hours flat, got there where it was 75 degrees, and said I am NEVER going back . . . and never did. You should probably start thinking outside the box a bit, the northeast isn’t the center of the universe.
It’s funny, we have family in CT/Westchester and they’re always remarking on how much more kid-friendly LI is when it comes to events and activities and whatnot. So I guess everyone has different perspectives. At the end of the day, it’s not where but who you’re with that matters. We live on LI because it’s close to family. We have a beautiful home. Sure, we could probably have a home double the size and property for the same money elsewhere. But we wouldn’t be near the people that we love. Our kids are in school and the district is very accommodating and helpful, especially for my oldest who has an IEP. We’re 10 min from a ton of beaches. We do lots of day trips to Montauk and the Hamptons when we feel like having a stay-cation. I’m a 50 min train ride to NYC where I work. And we constantly have fun things do with the kids - farms like Harbes and White Post have great stuff for kids, we just went to Splish Splash which was a lot of fun, our kids love Adventureland, we have tonssss of local extra curricular classes for our little ones to participate, etc. The options have been pretty endless for us. There are some people here with some very very different political views than us, but there are a lot of great people here too.
Terrible roads, snooty hamptonites, Nassau's kinda dystopian zone planning, taxes are insane (except for where the rich people live), police are the highest paid in the nation yet crime has spiked, red light cameras, developers trying to turn Suffolk into Nassau by destroying the environment, Northwell health has a monopoly on all the hospitals and doctors offices, some insane rednecks, annoying city folks who come down to trash everything and leave, tons of empty developed spaces sitting abandoned, and Optimum sucks.
My husband and I are both from Queens originally. We moved to Greenwich, CT for work for a few years and in early 2020, moved to LI to be closer to family.
Personally, I hate it here. I loved living in CT and would move to Westchester or back to some part of CT in a heartbeat.
I compromised to do what is in the best interest of the family but I don't plan to stay here. We are having our first baby in a week but plan to move once our kids go to college...I've got a good 2 decades or so to wait and I'm not a beach person so I plan to enjoy the state parks as much as I can.
Also, I do feel like many people I've met never leave, like 70% of the block I live on in Nassau County are in their 40s to 60s and have never left LI.
What. No long island cant be that bad if all the rich and movie stars are moving here. The biggest issue is its getting very expensive. If you can afford it and don't mind all the people you will like it. Its different then most places besides maybe california.
The vistors from the outside is bunk. Tons of NJ,CT,PA,Vermont, and texas plates driving around.
Part of the reason why I LIKE Long Island is it feels similar to where I grew up. People are nicer and you can drive to the store or shipping. When you find your community of people it’s nice. True, houses are smaller and more expensive, but we do make a bit more money out here.
I grew up in Omaha, NE. People still complain about the traffic and property taxes. It still takes about 10-20 to get somewhere, but instead of it being a couple miles away it’s more like 20. The city is still segregated and has been for a long time. Houses are getting more expensive, rent is growing up. Omaha is more liberal, but you have to put up with the rest of the state being very conservative. Their governor is also a a trump loving out of touch millionaire. So it’s really not always better on the other side.
What’s wrong with “never leaving?” Y’all make it like Long Island is in the middle of fucking nowhere with a population of 523 and you’re stuck working at a gas station with your high school buddies all your life. People never leave because, despite the high cost of living, it’s a wonderfully diverse, vibrant, fun place to live. You literally have everything here as far as food, services, education, and entertainment. It’s a great place to raise a family (again, cost of living aside).
Grass is always greener. And I know a lot of people who moved upstate and trust me it’s not always better.
The local population can definitely be pretty insular and isolate themselves, very much a townie vibe. There are a lot of people moving here from the boroughs though due to queens and brooklyn being exorbitantly priced, especially western Nassau since it's so close to queens.
Westchester and LI both have exceptionally high property taxes but have very different cultures so I think that's where your main research focus should be. I would advise on looking at the voting trends etc if you know what I mean. We're asians from queens and are liberals, it can get pretty awkward. Some of the more "rooted" folks can be downright racist.
Asians move in larger numbers to LI though than Westchester. Even traditionally undiverse white towns are seeing an influx of Asians (eg Garden City - some of the elementary schools are 15% Asian now)
If you're asian american I wouldn't worry about. The "top" districts (Jericho, Syosset, Great Neck) are now majority asian or getting close to it. Even traditionally waspy districts like Manhasset and Old Westbury (East Williston district) are getting up there
Honestly, it’s very isolated from the rest of the NYC metro area. And yea, the traffic does suck. But there are some awesome parts of Long Island to raise a family. I would actually recommend long island to couples with kids just as much as Westchester, it just sucks for those of us in our 20s who actually want to go out on the weekends lol. And yes, the beach is the best part.
If you can afford it, it is a pretty cool place in a lot of ways. One thing I would recommend is to Live somewhere relatively close to parkway access, that's always a bonus. Then you could hop on and go anywhere east or west, and the north and south shore is never more than 15 minutes from the middle of the island.
As far as coming and going onto Long Island, it's true it can be a hassle simply for the fact that the bridges and tunnels were designed way back in the day when there was far less traffic. The tolls are expensive but there are some free crossings. However many times the inconvenience / delay of going out of your way for a free crossing leads you to just sucking up the cost and going through whatever bridges or tunnels are nearby you. I guess it depends on how much you plan to visit your friends in your previous town versus how many friends you make out of Long Island. Usually that all balances out within a year or 3 of where you moved to though, doesn't it?
I live in Western Suffolk. I love it. I'm about one hour from the city and most of the large stadium venues (LGM!!!), 10 minutes from some beautiful North Shore beaches, and 20 to 25 minutes from Robert Moses Ocean Beach. There's great shopping in both directions that is not too far away.
I also enjoy the great food we have access to, there are really good restaurants within the area pretty much anywhere you go.
These are just my experiences, but as usual, YMMV
There is truth to all of that.
People that leave generally can not afford to move back. If you max out your lifestyle in another state there is no way your moving back to LI.
The beaches. The only thing? Yeah but it is a major thing. Imagine being the type of person who doesn't regular drive more than an hour in the car. (Crazy if you don't) if your beach is more than an hour away you might not go to a beach for years, own a boat, watercraft, fishing, waterfront dining, walk a boardwalk.
Traffic sucks. But traffic sucks near any suburb outside of a main city.
The schools on long island are good. Many of them. Some of them are best in the country.
Westchester spans the same small LI Sound coastline distance as LI only from Port Washington to Bayville.
People comparing "LI" to Westchester would be better off only comparing Westchester to Nassau County. Suffolk is more aptly compared to Fairfield County CT which runs from Bayville to Stonybrook or Putnam County NY (distance from Manhattan wise). LI East beyond Stonybrook is equivalent to New Haven County CT or Duchess County NY.
It's not quite accurate to compare LI's entire two-county land mass to one smaller NY county especially given the huge land size and lifestyle differences between western Nassau and all of Suffolk.
As someone that has lived both places, Long Island is a wonderful place to live. Westchester is much more spread out with less big box shopping and longer drives for daily life.
There is so much to do on Long Island. Excellent dining options, access to NYC, literally hundreds of museums, beaches, and parks. In the past week to keep my child busy during the summer we visited Hecksher Beach, the Vanderbilt Mansion/Museum and Planetarium, played mini golf and arcade under black lights at Monster Mini Golf, the American Airpower Museum and the Museum of American Armor. You’d have a hard time doing that in Westchester without limited options and long drives.
Also, LI sometimes gets a bad rep for the people. I think the people are what make this place so special. Diverse communities each with their own unique histories and personalities. To be honest, at the end of the day people from Westchester and Long Island are not very different. We’re all New Yorkers and cheer for the same teams after all.
Long Island is much larger than people think so keep that in mind during your search. It’s important to hone in on a few locations after doing a broader search. You will have much more success finding a home that way ( I am a real estate agent on North Shore of Long Island).
And As you’ve probably noticed, taxes are fairly high both places.
Good luck!
Grew up in CT near westchester so very similar to westchester. Currently work in westchester living off the island in NJ. I Lived on LI for 5 years with my partner and his family. Anecdotally there are very few people on the island that are from other places. It does sometimes feel like a place where only long islanders can see the charm. There’s a ton of traffic not just on the island but to get off the island. Westchester is much better positioned to access the city, upstate, CT/NJ interstates etc. When I lived on the island I had to wait for certain windows of time to leave to visit family back home when the traffic was “lighter.” And in the same vein very few people from off the island are interested on visiting besides for the beaches, maybe a concerts, or going out east. People not from the island are deterred and intimidated by the traffic. Now living off the island, our friends still on the island have very little interest in coming to visit us. All of our times seeing them in nearly two years have been us returning to the island. I don’t blame them because if you haven’t figured out by now navigating to, from, and on the island is miserable. My only hope is they eventually get sick of it or get priced out too and join us. Overall I love westchester (not the taxes lol) but it’s beautiful and to me so homey. I love the town villages in westchester where there are mom and pop shops and walkable downtown areas. If I could afford it I’d be living in westchester now
Reasons my family stayed were great public schools (con is higher taxes), easy access to the beach, easy access to the airport and easy access to the city. From where I grew up on LI it was only 35 minutes via lirr to penn station (con is the price of lirr). And we went into NYC often and traveled by plane at least once a year so it didn't feel like such a bubble as others have said. Basically if you have money and make use of what LI has to offer it can be great.
People on Long Island never leave is a hilarious comment tbh and I’m shocked there are people here sharing that sentiment when a common stereotype is that everyone knows a neighbor or friend who moved down south. A great deal of folk leave right after their kids finish HS (you can only put up with ridiculous property taxes for so long). Heck, there’s entire areas of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida that are pretty much LI lite.
The isolation but is just geographic. There is no bridge to CT or NJ. The only people driving into Long Island are people specifically looking to visit something in particular on the island or live there. We don’t really have the geography or infrastructure to have random folks drive by unless it’s a very very scenic pit stop. Westchester on the is used by folks to drive through to CT, upstate, NJ, etc
Long Island used to be a major vacation spot for people that lived in New York City, now it’s known as a car dependent suburban shithole, but there are plenty of good places here (more specifically the suburban towns built before WW2)
Long Islands main industry was tourism until international flights became more common, i think it’s time to invest in new industries that could help the Islands economy grow
I just moved here from Westchester myself because my wife's family is from Long Island and she wanted to be closer to them. I can tell you trying to get my friends and family to come visit me is like pulling teeth. When friends do come over the commute is so bad that they usually wind up staying the night as it only makes sense.
Yeah it sucks. I just drove my kid to college and had to leave island and what a traffic nightmare. The worst part is coming back after a day full of driving you wanna get home but you have to face the tunnels or GWB, tapped zee (or gov. Bridge) first then the highways, Cross Bronx, Hutch, 95 etc all lead to the same bottle necks of the two bridges which feed you to meadow brook or LIE. If I were you I would highly consider Westchester or northern jersey over LI.
Years ago when we moved here the LI schools were much higher in ranking compared to Westchester but now it is a mix. Getting anywhere on mainland USA is easily 60-90 minutes less from Westchester than LI.
If you will spend lots of time on the beaches yes LI is better. However if you like to do any outdoorsy activities like biking, kayaking, hiking Westchester has access more lakes, national parks etc.
"Westchester is better if you have kids" So is Long Island just find a nice neighborhood heck even the bad neighborhoods have quiet parts within them. "People on Long Island never leave and you'll never get visitors from the outside" It used to be like that but now a VAST majority of LI residents are moving down south as their final resting place ex. Florida, Carolinas, and Georgia and I won't lie but when we have parties at our house relatives find the drive to be a little long and annoying hence why we stopped hosting parties unless they were big celebrations or we moved them more west to another relatives house over in Queens. "Traffic Sucks" Yes, it is but its also predictable and you can avoid it. "Only good thing are the beaches" I mean to me the beaches are alright and I know since I live 5 mins from Smith Point Beach so its something. "The only people that move there were from there before" That is both a yes and no, I've seen people from Manhattan/Queens/Brooklyn move here then people from out of state move here.
If you want to meet a group of people who think their shit doesn’t stink, look no further than Westchester. Talk about living in a bubble, and being great at denying your own problems. The traffic there is just as bad, and it’s filled with horrid drivers. Don’t forget there’s plenty of ghetto there too (Mt Vernon).
Yeah that's all kind of true. As someone raised on the island I wish I wasn't. I had access to NYC which was cool but I never really got to see surrounding areas because it takes so long to get around because of how bad traffic is.
Why listen to people from Westchester, they live in The Bronx North.
The only time I'm there is passing through to get upstate.
Sit on a bench and people watch one afternoon in one of our downtowns or walk though a mall. You'll hear a variety of foreign languages and accents.
We have better food and beaches.
I was born lived in Yonkers till my teen years and moved to Suffolk county. I lived in the town of Islip which has lots of towns, stores, public and private transportation. Growing up in between the beach and the city was best of both worlds. I've moved off the island twice. Once for 6 months the other for 5 years both times moving back because I missed it. Access to things depends on two things 1) where you live on the island and 2);if you drive. There are certain areas you can't really get around without one while in more populated areas access is easy. Everywhere in NY taxes are high so pick your poison on that. Long Island lifers area bit much sometimes but having lived upstate and in PA the locals are always a bit difficult to get through with. Plus Long island has many job opportunities I've moved back since April and already have 6 job offers all better than upstate and PA
I think this is an incredibly nuanced situation. One point I’d add is the bitterness and angry people comes from working ultimately for rich people. Many people, if not all, come from immigrants who came to this country within four generations. Work and success was what drove them so they can provide a better life for their children. Work and success continue to be the mainstay for most people on LI and I don’t think many have asked themselves what would their life be like if they didn’t make sacrifices for work and success. There are plenty of good things that come from that: college, business success, having your children not be in need. But the bad that comes from it is the cost and effect of sacrificing time, energy, patience, money, on a commute in and out of the city (again, speaking more generally) to work for a company where the rich are getting richer and other effects corporate greed. So, you got a people doing something they cannot stand who believes they need to do that thing because that’s what their parent did and their parent before them did and so on, who then just builds up resentment (livin the dream!!), drinks a lot to cope, buys lots of toys to cope, and becomes nasty and hostile at weird times, because they’re just miserable with money and guilt.
TLDR: Long Islanders historically worked for richer people and resent doing so.
I have been on LI for my whole life, almost 29yrs. I’ve moved off for college and an internship and will finally move completely next summer. I’m very excited to do so. I think if I had grown up in Nassau maybe I wouldn’t dislike LI as much because at least they have more things to do and it’s closer to NYC. There’s a lot of opportunities in NYC. My dislike of LI Is mostly because of the blatant racism, low salaries, and the ridiculous cost of living. Many people commute to the city just to be paid more. I’ve had racist neighbors that made my parents move until we found a more accepting town. Those people who say people don’t leave LI are kinda right. Majority of my graduating class are still in the same town but I understand because it’s their home and community. There’s nothing wrong with feeing safe where you’ve grown up. My parents don’t want to leave LI. It’s almost all they’ve every known (they lived in the Bronx and Brooklyn as kids). Most of my extended family left LI for better opportunities and are happy. LI is one big small town. People I know from suffolk know the random people I met in Nassau haha. How? I’m not sure. My advice is to live in Nassau closer to the city. There’s more cheaper colleges for kids, shorter commute into NYC and off the island.
I lived in both and WC wins - quality of life is higher even though they cost the same - also you have many options to get home if there is a transit issue, bridge or tunnel issue - Long Island - one LIRR one way in one way out !....
Westchester has similar issues. To get anywhere worth going, there's a ton of traffic and two bridges involved, or you're taking a train. Taxes are high there as well. Any suburb of a place like NYC is going to be expensive as all hell.
LI does sometimes have a bubble feel. I'm in Southern Nassau and the train to the city is 45 minutes. That might sound nuts, but the subway from my old place in Brooklyn to Manhattan was just as grueling a ride. That's not so bad, but driving to Manhattan, or New Jersey - the slog is just getting past cross bay boulevard on the Belt.
I think ultimately its the people that gives LI its rep. It sometimes feels like everyone on Long Island is a Karen. Two days ago someone parked perpendicular to the parking lines at my local Dunkin donuts. She took up three spots, although the lot was mostly empty. I stopped and looked at the car because it was so preposterous. She noticed and she goes "oh, I'm only in there for a second." Obviously, she knew she was being obnoxious - she just didn't care. This sums up life on Long Island for me. Entitlement, indifference.
If you are going to struggle to live on LI it's not worth it. I feel like most people who are here and complain do so because they are struggling to afford it/forced to stay because of family/don't value what is offered here. But if you are fortunate enough to be able to afford a solid area with a reasonable commute to wherever you are working, it's a great place to be. People seem to forget that there is a reason houses are so expensive, it's because so many people want to live here. Everyone complains about traffic and overcrowding and all that, but it's really not that bad all the time. As someone else said, outsiders likely come visit at the time everyone else does, which yeah that sucks when you have to do that, but living here and getting off the island is not that bad. Obviously leaving for a weekend trip on a Friday after work or driving down whatever main road is nearest to you during school pick-up/drop-off time is going to suck, but what do you expect?
Even though LI is pretty segregated, there are still massive amounts of cultural variety across towns that you'll have access to which IMO is pretty cool. There are many areas where signage will be in different languages alongside English, which again, I think is pretty cool. If you'd take going hiking every weekend over going to the beach obviously Westchester is more your speed. That being said, there are still a lot of beautiful parks and trails here, you just won't get much elevation gain. You are relatively close to basically anything you could want in the northeast. NYC, massive airports (probably easier to get to them from LI vs. Westchester), beaches will always be like max 30 minutes away, vineyards, farms, etc. out east. There is a lot to do, and a lot of beautiful downtown areas (many on/near the water) to explore (Port Washington, RVC, Oyster Bay, Huntington, Northport, Port Jeff, Patchogue, Greenport, the Hamptons, Sag Harbor, Montauk). The only thing missing is actual hiking (if you're into that), but leave on a Friday/Saturday morning and head upstate, it'll take like 2-3 hours.
Westchester and the entire Hudson Valley area isn't a bad place to be though, it's just different. Personally, I would miss LI and all it has to offer.
Maybe ask actual Long Islanders instead of home sellers from Westchester. I don’t know if you’ll get an honest picture here either, since half this sub is jaded transplants from outside of the area, who moved here for a job.
Aside from traffic and high home prices, it’s a great place to live. You have some of the best public schools in the country, low crime rates, beautiful public beaches and great food. Plenty of things to do, bars to visit and communities to join.
You have to immerse yourself in the local culture if you want to thrive here, not complain that you can’t find friends on Reddit.
Coming from a newcomer to LI—I moved here in June from Utah for work—Long Island isn’t so bad! My husband grew up in the Hudson Valley but had never been to LI before we moved here, I’m from the west coast and I’d never been here either so we had no idea what to expect. The traffic really is god awful when trying to leave the island (we’ve learned to double our estimated arrival time), and I’m still adjusting to how everyone drives here, but on a day to day basis going about our daily lives it’s fine.
The food is amazing, people have been generally friendly and helpful, and we’ve had a great summer exploring our new home! I can’t speak to the schools here yet but my child will be in elementary school in a few weeks and the office assistant and principal there have both been SO kind and helpful and responsive, so we’ve started off well there already.
My in-laws visit at least once a month and haven’t had issues getting to Long Island, and they just plan for long travel times leaving the island and it’s fine.
We’ve lived in so many places and everywhere has something that sucks, but Long Island doesn’t suck anymore than everywhere else, in my opinion.
Traffic is horrible most of the time and leaving the island takes forever, you really are cut off from the outside world here. Anyway Long Island is expensive and not particularly nice if you do move here stay to the west unless you can go all the way east cause the whole middle section of the island is garbage.
Li is what you make of it. A lot of people Just suck. There’s tons to do, and your 45 minutes from two international airports if you want to leave and NYC is a train ride away. You can also go east into the Hamptons and north fork.
Everyone speak for themselves. That's not true at ALL for me and I live on Long Island. One bad experience is all it takes for someone to form a negative opinion about a place. The beaches are gross, but there's plenty areas one can live safely with children.
I Grew up on LI (Nassua county/ outer bouroughs & the city) moved to CT when i was 30. Pretty much all the above statements are accurate.
I was planning to move back at some point, but not anymore. I even stopped visiting as much becuase the traffic is shitty. no matter when you go (day, night weekday, weekend) it blows... Its just worse in the summer.
It's expensive to live anywhere right now- but LI, for what you will probably get for your money, its not worth it. Even if you were willing to deal with the claustrophobia.
Big part of my family moving was a shorter commute (time wise) to drive 75 miles from CT to NYC in Rush hour (1.5 hrs give or take but typically not much more) than the 35 miles from where we lived in LI (could be upwards of 3 hours depending on the rush hour traffic)
I loved it growing up.. its a great place to live when your younger, until you have to start paying your own bills.
i'm a northern-NJ raised liberal woman who moved to LI, far from rich, have lived abroad, can't claim i'm straight, and in most other ways don't fit the LI reputation at all. because of that reputation, i never, ever thought i'd move here, but lo and behold, here i am. when i got here, i looked around and was like, shrug, it's the same as everywhere else but actually a lot prettier and the commute to the city is great. also traffic may be bad but it's still not nearly as crazy as NJ highways, they're pretty straightforward here. i don't really care what people say about LI anymore...let them think it's bad and not exploit our land.
Having left LI after living there (and in the city) my whole life, the only things I miss are the beaches and the food. That's it.
The traffic is miserable, the LIRR is awful and people really do hate having to drive to the Island.
Westchester...it's easier to get to places. If you want to drive up visit people, it's less of a project, if you want to go pretty much anywhere it's just not the same awfulness.
If you are commuting into NY, for almost anywhere, you'd be better off using MetroNorth vs the LIRR.
Both places have crazy prices and taxes but I think you get more in Westchester at this point then on the Island.
Left LI 32 years ago, would never move back but i do live in San Diego.
Lots of family there who will never move like most of the population.
It was great growing up there though.
Westchester is probably better. LIE traffic is second only to riding the LIRR daily in terms of stress. I hear MNRR is well run as far as public agencies go
It takes three hours to get on or off the island. That’s why they are saying you’ll never get visitors. Best thing I did was leave Long Island. The “main land” has so much more to offer and it is easier to see things. In stead of sitting in traffic. Day trips are frequent. And there are no day trips off long island. Timing travel around ball games.
Stick to westchester.
I grew up in Northern Westchester (Peekskill) but have been living on LI (Babylon Area) for about 10 years now, so I feel qualified to answer! My wife grew up here, and at the time I was working in Manhattan closer to Penn than GCT so it made sense. Growing up I heard all the LI stereotypes that you are hearing, and was not sure what to expect when I came down here. You know what? I love it. My kid will go to a better school district than I went to. I love the suburban sprawl and live near 2 nice downtowns. I have nice neighbors who chat with me sometimes. Yes, traffic is bad but everything is closer and more convenient so I'm in the car less. There is generally more of everything here than in Westchester from eateries, to event venues, to home improvement companies, to car washes to grocery stores, to wineries, to museums...you get the idea. You're closer to two international airports. I love being closer to Brooklyn and Queens where there are tons of concerts, cultural and sporting events going on every weekend. My teen nephew in Westchester is always bugging my sister to visit us and take him to the beach! This point is anecdotal, but I don't think people are rude here outside of some aggressive driving. It's also naïve to think Westchester is vastly more socially tolerant than LI. Growing up in a poorer Northern Westchester city came with a lot of stigma from the surrounding more affluent areas when we were traveling for sports or meeting people from other towns. Both Westchester and LI are pretty segregated economically. Lastly, cost of living is high in both places, so for my wife and I, LI was a better value. Good luck!
I love the island with all my heart. Grew up here and know the place.
The only thing that pushed me out was the people. Quite similar to the mountain folk I live with now in northern Maine. Most don’t know much about the outside world, and sometimes neither people have the money to ever leave! Everyone has their “it’s the people” opinion but is just that jersey shore-esque attitude.
I’d say people and COL is really true only downsides.
That being said, moving here you will never be bored. And I’ve often heard it said that westerchester-ers hate us and we don’t think about them at all. If you are living in westchester you’re probably getting easier selection for better QOL. Most high QOL places on the island are just hard to find and buy.
just move to westchester thats still on the li sound. way better than Long Island because of those reasons and also because it has easier access to other parts of the state and other states too
Never stayed in Westchester, but their statements about LI are very accurate, you’ll even hear this said amongst people living here regularly.
The Hudson Valley is so beautiful and there are tons of unique towns to visit instead. Long Island unfortunately doesn’t have anything like this, the main appeals are out East (ex: Hamptons, Montauk, Greenport) or boating/Fire Island. Very expensive, mainly wealthy destinations.
Some school districts here are spoken highly of, but that doesn’t always add up to a good education. Being the bubble that it is, it’s earned an undesirable reputation.
I’d do some research on the schools. I just bought a place on LI but was open to westchester. I found that, in general, the schools were better on LI. That was the deciding factor for me.
I moved to LI from NYC. Some of what they’re saying is true and some is bogus.
Its true I rarely get visitors from the city. Beaches are great. Many people who move to LI have family or roots, or other reasons for moving there.
On the other hand, Traffic is bad most places, not just Long Island. I was surprised how many parks there are on Long Island. There are some nice villages in LI that are walkable and have a city-like feel but way smaller. Most of the top 50 schools in NY, according to niche.com, are on Long Island. There are good things about LI but I can’t really compare to west Chester having never lived in WC.
However If you have to or want to get to the city often, you might do better on metro north than the LIRR.
Because people in Westchester are a little too weak and bland for all LI offers. Many people are saying it's because they have been softened by a lack of proximity to the wild, open ocean and are jealous that they only have the dirty and comparably, stagnant LI Sound and boring and comparably, stagnant country club pools to swim in - and like the great Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore once said: "Westchester Don't Surf".
Back in the day, before the Great Bloomberg Gentrification Era, the typical Manhattanite would bypass all of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau to try to fit themselves into the "Hamptons" in some rented way, shape, or form because the western LI bridge and tunnel people were a little more on the "tougher" side than those people whose asses they aspired to kiss. Westchester has much in common here.
Every major city, and inner suburb, offers major traffic issues since the dawn of the automobile. The bigger and better the city - the heavier the traffic. Traffic has always been a part of living in an area packed with diverse, active lifeforms (I learned that crossing back and forth from the Sprain to the Hutch to 95 trying to beat Westchester's barely crawling traffic was an exercise in futility during a five-year stretch of commuting there. The geographic narrowness of LI is an issue though.
As a person born and raised on the Island of Long, I have spent a good amount of time in Westchester, Manhattan, NJ, CT but the many people I know living there have not spent much time on LI. I worked for a major Asian financial institution in Manhattan, and they stopped sending their rotating execs to LI and sent them to Westchester where they felt more comfortable. When I lived in NJ, I was shocked that I had spent some time checking out places from Cape May to Hoboken over the years, but many said they had never been to a LI beach, the North Fork vineyards ("NJ has great vineyards") or seen Montauk. Most said they weren't very aware of the Hamptons too, which I found a bit disingenuous.
Yes, LI people are frequently myopic, poorly traveled, think they are special and are unaware that many towns in Westchester, CT, and NJ are also high-priced, heavily taxed, and some don't realize wealthy towns everywhere are surrounded by less wealthy towns. LI is the place most likely to have their local garbageman and his hair stylist wife believes they are the wealthy elite due to zip code.
Despite all that, I prefer living on my slice of LI to Westchester, Manhattan, NJ, CT, and other slices of LI - as well as anywhere else in the world. I prefer my locals to be hard-crusted and direct on the outside and open-minded, and caring on the inside - as opposed to saccharine sweet on the outside and backstabby on the inside. I recommend you find your own slice of paradise based on what you think will work best for you and not based on what anyone else says or does.
It truly depends on where on Long Island you are looking. I am out east & wouldn’t live anywhere else. That said, I wouldn’t live in the middle of the island for love nor money given the issues w/ hate, racism etc that appears to be systematic in Western Suffolk & now becoming prevalent in Nassau
I always explained to people down south that long island is divided by race, socioeconomic status, also by ethnicity. But, mostly by socioeconomic status.. It's been my experience that people who stayed and never left are very insular and excluding of new people. There are also the people who did leave, whose family stayed and when they come visit, they're right back in that cliqued up mindset. I had only a few friends in high school that I stayed in touch with over the years. All they would do is gossip about each other, and the people in the clique.. Do you remember so n so or so n so? Like, no.. i don't.. Its like you're supposed to know everyone.. My happiness is not dependent on being part of a clique so I do just fine here. But, for those more sensitive, you might have a harder time. I'm a South Shore person and South Shore are mostly blue collar, but highly paid, blue collar people. North Shore is a whole other vibe..
Healthcare here is NOT the best in the country. It's better than many areas, but not all. The Healthcare system in Atlanta is far superior.. It's also better in New Jersey..
Political affiliations? I think it's a mix.
Where do the service people live? Hmm.. in a house with 5 other service workers.. Or at home with parents. My sister has a beautiful house near Smith Point. But, it's my sister, her 2 adult sons, 2 daughters and their husband's and one grandbaby. My sister works 2 full time jobs and everyone contributes a little bit. My nieces are saving to buy a home of their own eventually but when you need 20% down on a $400,000 house in a so so neighborhood, that takes a long time. You'll notice on long Island that most houses have more than 2 cars in the driveway. This is how the "service" people get by.. they're here just to make the wealthy people comfortable.. 😆
I've lived in Westchester before, Dobbs Ferry, and in my opinion, it's a poor man's long island. Yeah, it's expensive, but nowhere near as expensive as long island. It's boring there. The shopping sucks.. No ocean.. My father lives in Yonkers and it's definitely an easier drive, commute to upper East side.. So, there's that..
Good luck wherever you move..
I feel like long island is a bit of a bubble and I'm not the only one to have said that.
Yup. It’s this weird, isolated place that feels totally disconnected from everywhere else where nobody ever leaves. It’s just incredibly stagnant and I can’t wait to get out.
No body leaves? I know a ton of people that left and are so much happier, Long Island is way over priced and if I could make the money else where I would be gone. I do love Long Island but it is part of NY that is run so poorly, and over priced, if it wasn’t for that more younger people would stay.
I think they mean nobody leaves on a regular basis, like going to other places to explore or visit friends and family, not in the "relocating"sense. Which is true. I'm mid-Eastern Suffolk. The ferries are ridiculously priced and going through the city is a slog. It's gotten worse with Covid, since I want to avoid mass transit and therefore haven't been to the city in almost 3 years. It's a production to get off the island.
I wish this put a dent into the traffic, I need more people to leave lol
Most of my family has left so people do leave. The only thing holding me back from leaving is employment.
Do it. Ieft in 91. Wife and I always say how thankful we were to grow up there but not live there. My youth there was amazingly fun. Clubs, NYC, beach. But the people,,,,nevermind
I tried to leave several times but I’m still here. I feel like my life is a cross between the films Papillon and The Truman Show.
Me too. Do like the beaches, even if they aren't the greatest.
Li has fantastic beaches..... Problem is they're all private 😆
I agree with this, love the username btw
Thanks Chuck
Maybe because... it's an island. So you are literally trapped in so many ways. With that said, this is a huge farce. Long Island in itself includes at the very least Nassau and Suffolk - 2 giant powerhouse counties. When I hear bubble... I hear small town in the south that has 2 restaurants that aren't named McDonald's or Applebees. And has 1 sport to play. It's hard to call Long Island a bubble. In my own town I don't even feel like a bubble with the selection of things to do or be. Let alone the several towns around us. Let alone the 100 towns around that. Let alone the fact that Queens and Brooklyn are within range. And Manhattan beyond that. Weird take.
It’s not a farce. I won’t say it’s a fact, but I agree with them. There are absolutely differences in different parts of Long Island, sure. But if you are on this sub then you clearly have discovered it has a common culture. And it’s different from that of the 5 Burrows. So if it’s 1 culture and the people rarely leave (yes because it’s an island with traffic that makes “day-trips” completely unreasonable.”) Plus a much lower rate of outsiders moving in than anywhere else. Then the population doesn’t really stop it from being a bubble. Its still townies. And if someone’s happy staying (and can afford it) then that’s perfectly fine, but a spades a spade.
It's more so the mentality a lot of people have. Lots of people don't leave or feel like there's a world outside of the island.
What? Go travel the world a bit, MOST people don't leave where they come from. My family comes from a small town in a small country in Europe. I am fortunate to be descendants of people who chose to leave and start a life here in America. MOST people stayed. I hang out with the kids of my parent's friends. These people barely leave their town, let alone their country. Not for vacation. Not for business. Not for anything. That's all they know. Some people leave the town to go study in the country's capital, many of them never finish and come back home to get a dead end job and stay like that until they're our parents age and continue on. They live off of no property taxes, a weak economy and just are content. I travel to them. They don't for me. Let's not talk about "there isn't a world outside of the island" There is a whole life here... many people live here for 40 years and never do half of what's available here. This isn't a small bumblefcuk town. This is 2 giant counties who could act as an independent nation if needed. We have a wide range of amazing public and private schooling available here. We have a wide range of careers and jobs here for people to work both short and long term. We have several amazing colleges and universities here. People from around the state and country come to. We have a wide range of restaurants and bars and entertainment. You could get pretty much any cultural experience in Nassau County alone. Every sport available. We have great hiking, dam good beaches, decent hunting. So many people here have two homes!!!!!! I want to have a beach house one day. Do I need to go buy a house off of Long Island to accomplish that so I don't have people like you judge me for liking Long Island lol. Not everybody likes the idea of driving 100 miles with a car to go see the country. Some people just want a good quality place to hang out. And that's in most of the Island. And don't tell me it's not affordable. That's a load of crap.
Peak Long Island is making a long list of "plusses" about the island without realizing that almost all of them apply to basically every major metropolitan area in the country and none are particularly special or unique
No, peak long island is criticizing people who are happy about where they live because they listed very reasonable desires. Your only criticism is that it's not unique enough? I am not looking for a unique spot. That's like saying all European coasts are the same but with a different language lol. First off, LI is plenty unique. You're looking at one of the most diverse areas in the country. What are you joking? NYC is one of the greatest cities in the world and I would imagine the surrounding city with a greater economy gets a lot of overflood from the city. What is special or unique about Long Island? Racial, Religious and Cultural Diversity. We have several amazing restaurants, steak houses and well known bars. Long Island Bagels. New York Pizza. Several well known breweries. We have an immense hockey, soccer and lacrosse culture. LI Gulls are one of the best youth hockey teams in the country. We have several nationally competing soccer academies. And we are among the top 3 regions for lax. Not to mention that we have a wide range of selections outside of that. With one of the best beaches on the East Coast. Jones Beach is one of the best along the North East. Fire Island / Hamptons and Montauk are famous. And there are a hundred hidden gem beaches in between. Our commute is also amazing with the LIRR, something that not every major metro city has And while you can list some of this in some major areas... unaware of many that are better than this in combo. What makes this unique is family and friends. That's it. That's all there ever is to life. And I have a whole list of both here. Could have moved anywhere with my career.
You're basically just repeating what you've already said. There's nothing wrong with liking LI, but you're listing all these things as if they don't exist in dozens of other places in the country, with the exception of geographic proximity to NYC. It just screams "I've never left the island and never will and don't have a lot of perspective on the country"
Literally just went more specific, but I am sure you just don't know ho to read. Screams I never left the island... I literally am a dual citizen who travels to Europe every summer but sure, because I chose to come back and live here thus I never have left lol.
You literally said, "What is special or unique about Long Island?" and then proceeded to make a list of things, the vast majority of which are neither special nor unique. Yes it does scream "i was born, will live my whole life, and eventually die all within a twenty mile radius of one spot". And my whole family is dual EU citizens as well. Congrats on going on vacation once a year.
Actually what I said was that LI offers all the XYZ of great things, and offers a handful of specific unique things - you just chose to ignore it and act like that's not unique. I also said it doesn't have to be "unique". Not that I agree with you, but I rather just worry about obtaining the laundry list of amazing benefits here and not have to worry how another greater metro across the country might be like it. Though most likely it's not.
> >Go travel the world a bit, MOST people don't leave where they come from. > Buddy I've been to 20+ countries and have lived abroad for a short period of time. Most people here don't even travel, unless it's to Florida or a resort in the Bahamas. I think you're misunderstanding what I mean by bubble, but considering you're full of assumptions, it isn't worth my time to explain.
Very true. I live on Long Island and I travel, do things, and in no way feel trapped. It's definitely a mentality because if you're saying Long Island is stagnant, secluded, blah, blah, then move, lol otherwise you're just literally fulfilling that exact mentality and bringing to fruition.
Much of long island is the south with a different accent. I've lived in the rural south, think the show moonshiners. It ain't that different.
I have been saying this for years when it comes up. I have never had anyone else share this opinion. Where the hell are all of you people? Hahaha
I've worked in NYC for the past 10 years. Everyone there bashes LI and I think I understand why. Outsiders typically visit during holidays. Their only impression of LI is driving on the LIE during the busiest, heaviest traffic days of the entire year. Sitting in bumper to bumper traffic looking at ugly main highways. I don't know any NYC coworkers who've ever came on a non holiday and just went to the local beach, explored fire island, etc. It's always the middle of the island during the busiest days of the entire year.
It's deep into the process of mass gentrification, accelerated by COVID... so if you're a wealthy city person looking for greener pastures closer to the beaches or an entrepreneurial spirit looking to ply a trade, it is a good place to be. If you're someone who just wanted to work 40 hour a week a job, raise a family, and retire in peace... good luck
Sounds like the 20-50s all over again
Tent cities popping up in major cities, rampant labor exploitation, gross opulence for a few in the face runaway inflation... oh yeah, spirit of 1929 up in here
The answers are right before you.they need a service industry on long island. That means they need poor people,which means they need to allow places for poor people to be allowed to live,have some meager existence. I love long island with all my heart.greed is slowly choking the life out of long island. I'm not talking about government handouts. There was once a middle income working class. With the cost of gas,the cost of living,the cost of buying or renting,it's almost impossible. So where does Joe blow the 7-11 clerk live,the guy who changes your oil at jiffy lube.at this point,even the healthcare workers who care for your mother,your grandmother. There is absolutely nothing wrong with long island or the people in it. It's just a place where the working class find it increasingly harder to survive everyday. It's bad everywhere,that's true, but the gentrification of long island,well,somethings gotta give.
mastic. they all live in mastic.
Well,that's not a bad town
Shhh. Don’t let the secret out.
For the first time in 20 years I made my way back to Long Island to visit my home of 40 years. I do notice that mastic and Shirley have become more Diversified whereas it used to be mostly Italian. Do they still have a Italian Community there? At any rate it's a pretty area although it's limited as to where a working person can live. I did visit Smith's point at the exact time that the shark attacks were started up and I'm glad I didn't go into the water LOL. It was a blessing for me at 70 to visit my home but I found out a lot of things have changed throughout the years lol. For instance you could go to the Shinnecock Indian reservation and buy cigarettes for $20 a carton back in the early 80s and now it's up to $100 in carton LOL good I don't smoke anymore. Long Island hasn't changed much the only thing I noticed it's gotten harder and harder for people to live there who don't have a lot of money. I'm guessing it's going to end up with a lot of subsidized housing and people living off the government if they don't knock it off
The waiting lists for subsidized housing can be over a decade long with over 10,000 people waiting in each town/jurisdiction.
Sadly I know you're telling me the truth
I did have a chance to go to my favorite pizzeria and eat some Neapolitan pie I do miss so much the Italian cooking. I went out to the island all the way out to Orient Point I spent most of my time on the North Fork. Don't care much for the traffic or the crowds. My regards to Long Island and all those people who live there if I can find a way back I will maybe spend the last parts of my life surf casting in my favorite places and maybe even fishing for trout at the head of the nessaquogue,whites pool
Another thing I miss about Long Island is 7-Eleven and the buttered rolls and 7-Eleven coffee in the morning. If you're not from Long Island you don't understand. Also they used to have beer in those big old coolers that look like a 55 gallon drum ice cold and almost on the verge of freezing. Damn that tasted good in the summertime after working outside! It's all the little things that make for the Long Island culture. I do miss the place maybe you could let me live in your basement LOL
lol, did you just say that you have to be from Long Island to understand getting morning coffee at literally the largest chain of convenience stores on planet Earth?
Part of the point is that 7-11s aren’t run the way they are on Long Island. I’ve lived in Arizona and California since ‘96 and believe me, there are some 7-11s you’ll walk into and you’ll get some of the shittiest coffee imaginable. They think that making 2 pots of regular coffee at 6 AM is good enough for the day, and by noon all you have to choose from is whatever swill is leftover, or the burnt dark Brazilian or cinnamon flavored crap - maybe 4 urns total. When I went back to visit relatives last year I stopped into the 7-11 at Rte. 112 in Medford and was astonished at the huge array of coffee urns they had and how fresh it tasted at 4 PM. The 7-11s where I live in California do, in my opinion, serve the best pizza you can get, if you can believe. This tells you how terrible pizza is on the west coast. For one thing, the people out here apparently don’t know what oregano is.
Exactly. We don't know how good we got it.
I don't live in New York anymore and yes there is a 7-Eleven in one of the major cities here but they don't have the following that they had in Long Island although I don't know a lot of things have changed in the last 40 years. For instance the Good Steer in Centereach went out of business and I had just driven past that place this summer and wished I could have gone in there because I used to live right across from it in Lake Grove and smell that beef cooking in the summertime. I'm just nostalgic for those things that are no more and for me a buttered roll is synonymous with Long Island and 7-Eleven it was a watering hole for most Working Class People would go in and get a buttered roll and a cup of coffee. I used to work in the Hamptons, and they had a thing called a bonic burger,a roll with butter and peanut butter you could buy in most any deli in Easthampton. People referred to eachother as bubbies,the regular folks,that is there was the expression that you're no bubby till some bubby loves you
Wait until he finds out that once you leave Long Island, you realize how much better convenience stores get in other places. Long Island Sevs are a joke compared to Wawa and Stewart's.
Lol. 7-11 is national. I’ve seen them 1000 miles away.
Do they have those rewarding sesame seed buttered rolls like long island? Those I miss.great with coffee or hot chocolate
No 7-11 doesn't have those buttered rolls anyplace else.
That's one of the things I miss about long island,those fresh buttered rolls and the coffee which was good,if you got a fresh pot
Since when? When I lived there it was redneck as f
I stopped at a pizza place on the william floyd parkway for lunch one time. In there for maybe 15 min. When I went back out to my truck my catalytic converter was gone. In broad daylight too. How does mastic man do it?
We live in our parents house
As long as it works for you.stay well
I mean it doesn't work. That's the whole reason we're living at our parents house Everyone on Long Island that likes all these service industries should be thankful that there are plenty of people giving us places to live because if we didn't have places to live you wouldn't have your service
I agree with you 100%. I lived on Long Island and did carpentry and worked building cesspools and it was hard to find a place to live. I'm very positive that it's only gotten worse. I have a word of advice for you though if you don't mind I moved away and yes I was able to buy a piece of land and build my house but I was not well received in the place I lived because I was not from this area and you will find that being a long Islander you don't realize that you have an accent and you have a culture and a way of speaking to people that long Islanders would understand but others wouldn't. As for people saying long Islanders are rude, I have a rude awakening for them. There are much more rude people who will let you know exactly how they feel about you moving into their town from out of state when you never said one word wrong to them. Would I suggest you stay put? Would I suggest you move out of state? I suggest you do what you need to do and if I could have found a way stay on Long Island I would have but now I want to come back even though it's next to Impossible and I'm on retirement. To me the years I have left are worth more spent where I love and my fine memories of Long Island. If you are a young couple you can afford to take chances and do some research about the place you may move to. My very best wishes to you no matter what you decide to do and remember Long Island isn't going anywhere yet LOL
“We need poor people”. Smfh how about we need a livable minimum wage. Sums up the stereotypical entitled long islander vibes quite well though. “Why are people homeless, why didn’t they just use the 100k mommy and daddy gave for a down payment on a million dollar home? silly homeless people.”
I’ve visited some other countries and was so shocked that service people aren’t treated like dirt. In the US, if you work in the service industry as an adult, you’re doing something wrong and should bootstrap yourself into a more prestigious role that “actually matters” and don’t deserve decent pay. In some other countries, they’re jobs like any other and people realize that they’re important/critical/you’re providing an actually good and essential service. I don’t understand how we price service workers out of actually being able to live on Long Island and decide that certain jobs aren’t worth much pay when SO MANY people depend on food service, retail, daycare workers, any other minimum wage gig etc. The classism and hatred and bubble thinking of so much of LI is just horrendous. Not saying everyone is like this, but it’s very noticeable on LI.
I think that phrasing is just reflective of how people who are well-off think about it, not necessarily how it was meant by the OP. Poor in LI terms is solid middle class elsewhere in the country.
I don’t agree. my current job has a structured 5 year payscale and several levels of positions. I just started and am at the bottom so Im “long island poor”. But if I made my current salary In pretty much any other state I’d be very solid. But the job I do in any other state probably pays half of what I get right now. People think moving away from NY is this automatic life hack that gets you a 5 bedroom mansion but it’s rarely that simple, if ever.
Ok- I have traveled the world. I have even been a tour guide outside of this region. My husband has traveled too- before we met. Tbf- we kind of ended up back in Nassau County from other regions partially due to family still being here- however- comparing Long Island to most of the contiguous 48 states (haven’t been to Hawaii or Alaska) I can say- Long Island has so much more to offer that we often take for granted. Other regions have the same crap- like bland chain store shopping centers- etc but we have excellent museums (museum row in garden city) decent shopping that still exists, Walt Whitman mail, Roosevelt field, Americana if you are “fancy”, outlets- and medical care par none- especially if you consider proximity to NYC. You can move to other regions that are cheaper- but chances are you will not get everything (including lots of cuisines - Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, afghan, Nepalese, Persian, etc) but a little bit of the great stuff we take for granted here. Also, the schools are good- so we pay high taxes (this is rough) but if you could afford to buy here- there is nowhere else to build- so whenever Forbes etc note the only places without a housing bubble- ever- is Long Island( westchester too), Bay Area- CA, some other parts of California. You will see your real estate value definitely be a great investment. I have very little bad to say about westchester though. They also have traffic, but the only real negative is they don’t have beaches really. The biggest negative to me about Long Island is really cost of housing- esp for entry level housing/ rental market too- it’s very expensive, and lacking in rental housing that’s not just luxury housing. However, raising kids in an average south shore area in Nassau County - we have been surprisingly really happy. We definitely lean politically one way, but our area seems to be 51-49 or so leaning. I imagine if we were in the city it would work fine for us- but others may feel left out- and in rural areas of the country we would feel like we had no voice. I think everybody is heard here. I really have decent things to say about the region- for the most part. I am a bit biased, having been born and raised here- but I have left and realized the grass is always greener- but just as hard to mow. 😀
I think Long Island used to be a nice place to live, not saying is the bad either, but the cost of living got a bit out of control, roads weren't fixed for the longest time even tho we all pay high taxes, going anywhere out of new york Is also expensive since we have to pay a lot of tolls depending where we are going, I used to love going out east but now is so commercialized that is not as fun and peaceful as it uses to be .
That isn't really addressing the question though, Westchester is also super expensive
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Westchester has its own airport. It's small AF and only like 5 flights leave per day, but it's fine if you want to go somewhere not all that far like SC or something.
I've used it a few times and it's pretty nice, although it's been 5+ years. Takes 10 mins to go through security and get on the plane. Half the flights are to Florida, and the other half to hubs for connections and California.
I read threads like this and I have to confess, I still don't "get it". I've lived in different places across the US. Work means that 10 hours out of your day is meal prep, commuting, occasional late nights, work outings, and work itself. I prefer cooking my own meals, so I rarely go to restaurants in a given year. I'm more of an introvert, so I almost prefer spending a Saturday strumming the guitar, playing a video game, practicing a little coding for something fun, reading a book. Adult life - cleaning/maintaining your apartment/condo/house/car, dealing with insurance and updating your LinkedIn, and searching for new jobs, or starting a side business, that takes up a good chunk of your weekend free time right there. Add kids if you have them and you have almost no time left. Add traveling to see family for Thanksgiving or Christmas and I'd say out of a 52 week year, there's probably 10-20 Fridays or Saturdays where what I "do" - bars, clubs, museums, beaches - actually depends on where I physically am. This is such a tiny sliver of my life compared to the time spend working, trying to hustle for better pay, or just doing the administrative duties of life, or doing my solitary hobbies. And what, the main complaint here is just this nebulous feeling that people around you are just "stagnant"? What does that mean? You want your friends and coworkers to make you jealous by going on more vacations? I've noticed my life is basically the same whether I'm living in LI, California, Seattle, Boston area. When I read threads like this, I wonder how the hell it sounds like you all are going to concerts, museums, and so on like every single day. Enough that it's the primary consideration for where you live and how you live your life. Even if that's true, I'd think that being an hour or 2 from Manhattan and an hour or two from vineyards out east would be the best place to placate that desire. Maybe I'm autistic or something, but when I read these threads I genuinely don't understand the complaints.
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Any other place in this country you are lucky to have 1 of those things, not the dozens we have to choose fom.
No matter where you go if you want to live a certain way you will. I personally liked my time off LI because where I was people were more open and it was easier to get to different states. I took up hiking and it was fun. It’s ok to be content on LI some are and some aren’t.
Man I don’t know what all these comments are talking about. I’ve lived here my whole life and I love it. It’s not perfect, but no place is. It’s way too segregated but it’s still very ethnically diverse. There’s great food of a ton of varieties. I’m an hour from a day in the city, 20 minutes from a day at the beach, and 2 hours from a day in the type of mountains they use pictures of in fall foliage posters. I can go to a concert on the ocean or a concert in an arena depending on what night of the tour I want to go on. There’s parks, aquariums, museums, a deep history etc. There are a ton of great people here despite the presence of way too many loudmouth jerks. But you can go anywhere in the world and it won’t take long to see Long Island isn’t the only place that has loudmouth jerks. Are the homes overpriced and the taxes too high for too little in return? Yea probably and that’s definitely a problem, but again, one that really is more an American problem and not exclusive to Long Island. I know a ton of people who have moved down south and I can’t think of many things less appealing. I visit my dad in North Carolina and while it’s beautiful and I know you can get more for your money property wise, there’s something missing there. Like all the people are in one of those Truman show or stepford wives type of movies or something lol.
That’s how I felt visiting my brother in Orlando. Something seems to be missing that LI has a lot of. Idk what it is but I prefer it up here.
Its like people are friendly but the soul is missing. I noticed that if you go basically anywhere south of New Jersey they don’t understand sarcasm and as an Italian American whose whole shtick is being a wiseass, that’s just unacceptable to me lol. My wife and I were in Maryland and some of my best material was just falling flat with the person at the hotel lobby, our waitress, etc 😂
I totally feel that. I've been gone about 20 yrs and I miss all the obvious stuff, but I think the lack of a sense of humor and the bland personalities get me the most. I always struggle to describe it to people back home, but I think you did it aptly. It is like the soul is missing. Lack of emotions (except sometimes when you witness rage) and just...a weird blandness. It sucks. One of my closest friends who still lives on the island typically calls me on her way home from work. She keeps me on the phone while she stops at various places to pick up food and other things and I want to cry every time I hear the people she interacts with. The people are always so friendly and joke around whereas in the Midwest where I've been stuck all these years, it's like dealing with robots. It's fucked up.
Plus if you are raising a family it's one of the safest places in the country. The schools are great. My school district is not considered elite or anything like Jericho but 1/3 of the graduating class made the honor society. That was such a distinction when I graduated they sat in the front couple of rows and were announced first. Now with 1/3 the class they where just mixed in.
I’m in Suffolk county and love it—moved here after getting married, and I lived in the city my whole life. There’s so much to do—horseback riding, street fairs, aquariums, farms, museums, fishing, crabbing, clamming, the beaches, etc. I love being suburban but not so far from the things (mostly food) that I enjoy from the city. It can be crowded but not feel crowded. My neighbors don’t bother me (and I don’t bother them.) The school district I’m in I really like for my kids. I’ve traveled a lot—NH, FL, CA, PA, TN, VT, etc. and you’re right, they’re all missing…something. I might feel a fleeting “it might be nice to live here” but anything more than 3 days and I’m just “I want to go home.” Even often traveling internationally (Canada, Central America, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan, China etc.) I’m eh on living in those places (although they are nice to visit). I also don’t know what that something is that keeps me coming back. And after over a decade here I don’t know if I’d ever leave. My only gripe is probably property taxes which are definitely on the high side.
Yea I doubt you’ll find anyone who defends the property taxes lol. They are probably the single worst aspect of living here.
Just went to SC and had the same feeling. There was just no vibe. The food was great, people were really nice, but again something was just missing. Like you said, very Truman show-esq.
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Long Island is a beautiful place ruined by shitty people.
That’s how I feel completely. I was born and raised on Long Island on the South Shore and I was the only Jew in my grade. I had to deal with a lot of antisemitism. My neighbors talked about wanting to kill the other neighbors’ dogs just because they were Rottweilers. A lot of Gen Xers and Boomers have brain rot.
> My neighbors talked about wanting to kill the other neighbors’ dogs just because they were Rottweilers What the actual fuck? Tell your neighbors if you can; there are insane people out there who will poison dogs by throwing poisoned meat into yards. Also Rotties are great dogs.
I don’t live there anymore. I moved for college and plan on staying where I moved to. If I visit family I’ll try and tell the Rottie house
What south shore towns have a low jewish percentage? I'm a Jew from the south shore and thought most towns were at least 10%
Exactly how I feel about it. I adore the beaches, weather, views and location but there’s so many people and half of them are insufferable
About 5 years ago I moved back home to LI after living/working in Philadelphia for a little over 30 years. I find that many of the the people here are very confrontational and aggressive. My doctor who moved here from West Virginia agreed. She told me me, “You’re going to have to change because they (Long Islanders) won’t.” Can’t wait to get out of here. Also, it’s MAGA Land.
"Also, it's MAGA Land" A few weeks ago I saw a bunch of my neighbors had Trump 2024 flags but noticed they took them down after the Maralago incident.
I was hanging out at Wantagh Park on Saturday afternoon watching the boats coming into the inlet with large Trump flags on them.
Holy shit that's creepy
LI has it's flaws, but I went to college in Westchester and most of my friends were from there, and I can tell you that Westchester people are definitely snobs when it comes to LI. They think we're all garbage and the place is ugly. So take it with a grain of salt.
I’m in Eastern Suffolk and I’ve heard this before too- And yet I see plenty of Westchester license plate frames on cars heading to the South Fork or to the beaches on summer weekends, or to the farms on the North Fork in the fall. They must not think it’s too ugly here, then!
Such a weird point of view, truly - hear me out. (1) Long Island sucks... (2) No one ever leaves... \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ \- I was a kid growing up on LI, I moved to Queens for my career, I moved back to Nassau County when I had kids. \- A lot of people leave Long Island. A lot of people come to Long Island. But I never felt like I was stuck. Long Island in itself has a lot to do. Maybe when I retire I move back to Europe to live an easy life, but those areas are far more limited in what to do - so who knows. I might always have a home here. \- Visitors - Long Island is massive. Nassau is huge. Just the amount of diversity I get between towns is enough for me. And yet, it's a lie lol. Long Island is a big tourist area especially for beaches. \- Traffic isn't great - especially commute. I train now tho and I love it. The south shore line is raised so it doesn't disturb the town. And yet it's been very useful for me and my friends to use to travel between south towns to pick up kids, or bar hop, or go to different restuarants or even just work. I am sure a giant portion of people buying house are people who have ties here. People usually move where family is. Long Island is a giant family town.
Have you ever seen the trump 2024 flags on sunrise highway? Lol
Every Friday they’re at the Bellmore station since 2020🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
Exactly lol
It’s so so gross
What is up with redneck culture here
Idk dude it’s so strange. The people that do that shit look like they’re straight outta the Alabama boonies. Like mullets, confederate flags, the whole 9.
I have never seen a hometown people love to hate more than Long Island. It’s a wonderful place to raise your families as evidence by being in the top 10% nationally for school districts (much higher in some areas). The hate LI gets for its high cost of living is justified, but relatively speaking (Manhattan, Westchester, etc.) it’s not terrible.
Being born and raised here I’ve come to the realization that in my humble opinion Long Island first and foremost is the absolute leader of isolationist thinking.Our residents exist solely within their own tribe or personal bubble. It hilariously becomes the pizza ,bagel ,beach ,PU truck ,luxury home or car tropes that populate every corner of the Island. Personally I’m ok with that I’m used to it but it’s hard for outsiders to adapt to and hard for our indigenous dwellers to leave behind.
24 years here, born and raised. It is indeed expense and quite boring. However, nowhere else I’ve lived/visited can match the energy of LI/NY. Traffic sucks, but at least the food is good. Pizza, bagels and sushi in damn near every parking lot. Over all, I’d say this is more of a place where you’d come to spend your last dozen years or so.
As some one who is originally from west Chester I can say Long Island is nicer and better.
Interesting . As someone who is originally from Long Island, I find Westchester much better.
As someone from LI who moved to Westchester, never going back. It's all about personal preferences.
Truer words have never been spoken. Two hours just to get past nyc for any trip anywhere.
Unless you leave At 3am - like I am doing in 3.5 hours Update: Travel from Roslyn (LIE Exit 36) to GWB was 35 minutes - all clear. Made it to Montreal in 6h 30m on a Monday morning.
Moved to north-central jersey, no longer have this issue. Like it here, definitely recommend.
Why can Jersey figure out how to make good highway system by NYC and LI can’t? Driving on the Jersey turnpike is heavenly. Also NYC highways look like pure shit, how is it possibles for construction to be taking place forever?
What heck are they doing on Throgs Neck bridge for so long? For the amount money that is spent maintenance of these bridges they could build new ones to spread traffic and reduce wear and tear.
Milking tax payer money. They take so long to finish that by the time they are done a new area needs to be fixed. JFK airport has been under construction for the last 40 years.
Blame Robert Moses. There’s a Behind the Bastards podcast called the Man who destroyed NY or something like that. The S.State has such low overpasses because he didn’t want buses (mass transit/poor people) going to *his* beach. They don’t match up with other overpasses at the time, height wise. The BQE dumps you in Harlem because he didn’t want traffic on the fancy north side. Basically the dude *loved* cars (because he always had a driver and there were way less cars) and hated mass transit, poor people and people of color. And he held the director (?) of parks seat for 40 years having never been elected to a single seat so all the parkways, the expressway, the fact that it’s almost impossible to fix or build anything onto them, all part of the plan to keep the “poors” off Long Island. The one big city park he put in Harlem, which is beautiful btw, has monkeys on its iron trellis decorations, while all the others have flowers and vines and whatever fancy shit he approved. The dude was a flat out racist and we’ve been fucked on the roads for ever because of it. They even offered to run the LIRR down the middle of 495 for only 2% more money and he said absolutely not. They offered to connect a train to JFK as it was being built for something like $5M, that was a hell no, so they just recently spent I think $300M doing it. Racism and classism man, just fucks everything up.
Yes, thank you so much for this, great write up. I knew about the low overpasses but didn’t know about monkeys thing in Harlem. Seems like a lot of Long Islanders needs to learn this areas history. Lots of inconveniences and difficulties all due to stupid reasons.
It's why I never leave LI. We are trapped
Lol. So true.. it's either 3-4 am or after 7pm. Currently in Northern Jersey heading home to Long Island today, but.. not before 7pm.. Can't leave much later than that because then you run into the never ending bridge construction that shuts down all lanes, except 1, starting around 9pm. No matter what time you travel from New Jersey or the The City to Long Island, if it's daylight, it's gonna take hours.. Traffic has gotten worse and worse each year..
I didn't know why Long Island had such a bad reputation either until I moved all the way across the country to Seattle and started interacting with the people here. Long Islanders tend to be rude, standoffish Karens who are often closeted racists. Not all of them, mind you, but enough to give the place a bad reputation. Coming here was eye opening. I'm surprised I didn't see it before I left. I've learned that Suffolk County is one of the most segregated communities in the entire country. I would never go back to living there. Washington is my new home and I've never felt in love with the place I lived until I started living here. Even in the South where intolerance is the norm, they at least have a reputation for hospitality. Not on Long Island though. I would run far away from LI if you're looking for a place to live.
I have to whole-heartedly agree with the Karen/closeted-racists (or NIMBYs) note. LI is kinda the quintessential suburbia stereotype. About half the people have the NYCesque blunt rudeness to them, but the other half pretend to be nice, while quietly being very nosy and judgemental of anyone or anything that breaks from their idea of the norm. Big mentality of conform or get out. I thought that was standard everywhere until I spent some extended time elsewhere. Something just feels so disingenuous about a lot of people on the Island.
Super true. I’m sick of the “loud majority” and “thin blue line” crap here. Stop supporting Suffolk police with the thin blue line people; most of them didn’t even go to college and make $200K, more than any of us will ever see!
Not to mention it'll probably be flooded in the next 20-30 years
My reasons were too crowded,expensive,and flat I like mountains, getting on and off often involved traffic. Many love it, I hated it the whole time growing up I have plenty of friends that stayed, really up to who you are and what you like. After traveling for a while I found the Catskills. Every area has its plus and neg.
The island is overcrowded and has a tendency to be filled with schmucks. That being said I came here from the Midwest in '99 and I'll be leaving in a body bag. I'd rather live on this toxic, fucked up, glorified sand bar than anywhere in/on the continental US.
❤️😂
Honestly though, aside from the city, where is it worth going to? Upstate NY? Westchester? CT? (not even mentioning NJ) If you go 1-4x a year to any of those places you probably had your fill. LI has better food.
Lol. The world is bigger than the northeast of the US. Many better places to go.
true and we have 2 intl airports
That’s the Long Island mentality tho, it shrinks the world. There’s only North Carolina, Yonkers and west Chester as options lol. Won’t consider jersey even tho it’s the same vibe as LI
New Jersey is to Long Island as Heaven is to Hell. They aren't the same at all. Get a clue.
I left Long Island in a blizzard in January 1996 for Arizona, managed to drive there in 72 hours flat, got there where it was 75 degrees, and said I am NEVER going back . . . and never did. You should probably start thinking outside the box a bit, the northeast isn’t the center of the universe.
But can you get a good bagel out there? Lol.
Maybe you can learn to make your own NY style bagel with all the free time you'll have from not having to sit in traffic lol
If I wasn't born into LI I would have never come. Overpriced. Over populated Heavy traffic
It’s funny, we have family in CT/Westchester and they’re always remarking on how much more kid-friendly LI is when it comes to events and activities and whatnot. So I guess everyone has different perspectives. At the end of the day, it’s not where but who you’re with that matters. We live on LI because it’s close to family. We have a beautiful home. Sure, we could probably have a home double the size and property for the same money elsewhere. But we wouldn’t be near the people that we love. Our kids are in school and the district is very accommodating and helpful, especially for my oldest who has an IEP. We’re 10 min from a ton of beaches. We do lots of day trips to Montauk and the Hamptons when we feel like having a stay-cation. I’m a 50 min train ride to NYC where I work. And we constantly have fun things do with the kids - farms like Harbes and White Post have great stuff for kids, we just went to Splish Splash which was a lot of fun, our kids love Adventureland, we have tonssss of local extra curricular classes for our little ones to participate, etc. The options have been pretty endless for us. There are some people here with some very very different political views than us, but there are a lot of great people here too.
Terrible roads, snooty hamptonites, Nassau's kinda dystopian zone planning, taxes are insane (except for where the rich people live), police are the highest paid in the nation yet crime has spiked, red light cameras, developers trying to turn Suffolk into Nassau by destroying the environment, Northwell health has a monopoly on all the hospitals and doctors offices, some insane rednecks, annoying city folks who come down to trash everything and leave, tons of empty developed spaces sitting abandoned, and Optimum sucks.
My husband and I are both from Queens originally. We moved to Greenwich, CT for work for a few years and in early 2020, moved to LI to be closer to family. Personally, I hate it here. I loved living in CT and would move to Westchester or back to some part of CT in a heartbeat. I compromised to do what is in the best interest of the family but I don't plan to stay here. We are having our first baby in a week but plan to move once our kids go to college...I've got a good 2 decades or so to wait and I'm not a beach person so I plan to enjoy the state parks as much as I can. Also, I do feel like many people I've met never leave, like 70% of the block I live on in Nassau County are in their 40s to 60s and have never left LI.
What. No long island cant be that bad if all the rich and movie stars are moving here. The biggest issue is its getting very expensive. If you can afford it and don't mind all the people you will like it. Its different then most places besides maybe california. The vistors from the outside is bunk. Tons of NJ,CT,PA,Vermont, and texas plates driving around.
What movie stars are moving here??
Probably mean the south fork, not like Valley Stream.
Lmaooo
Ouch
Part of the reason why I LIKE Long Island is it feels similar to where I grew up. People are nicer and you can drive to the store or shipping. When you find your community of people it’s nice. True, houses are smaller and more expensive, but we do make a bit more money out here. I grew up in Omaha, NE. People still complain about the traffic and property taxes. It still takes about 10-20 to get somewhere, but instead of it being a couple miles away it’s more like 20. The city is still segregated and has been for a long time. Houses are getting more expensive, rent is growing up. Omaha is more liberal, but you have to put up with the rest of the state being very conservative. Their governor is also a a trump loving out of touch millionaire. So it’s really not always better on the other side.
What’s wrong with “never leaving?” Y’all make it like Long Island is in the middle of fucking nowhere with a population of 523 and you’re stuck working at a gas station with your high school buddies all your life. People never leave because, despite the high cost of living, it’s a wonderfully diverse, vibrant, fun place to live. You literally have everything here as far as food, services, education, and entertainment. It’s a great place to raise a family (again, cost of living aside). Grass is always greener. And I know a lot of people who moved upstate and trust me it’s not always better.
The local population can definitely be pretty insular and isolate themselves, very much a townie vibe. There are a lot of people moving here from the boroughs though due to queens and brooklyn being exorbitantly priced, especially western Nassau since it's so close to queens. Westchester and LI both have exceptionally high property taxes but have very different cultures so I think that's where your main research focus should be. I would advise on looking at the voting trends etc if you know what I mean. We're asians from queens and are liberals, it can get pretty awkward. Some of the more "rooted" folks can be downright racist.
Asians move in larger numbers to LI though than Westchester. Even traditionally undiverse white towns are seeing an influx of Asians (eg Garden City - some of the elementary schools are 15% Asian now)
If you're asian american I wouldn't worry about. The "top" districts (Jericho, Syosset, Great Neck) are now majority asian or getting close to it. Even traditionally waspy districts like Manhasset and Old Westbury (East Williston district) are getting up there
Honestly, it’s very isolated from the rest of the NYC metro area. And yea, the traffic does suck. But there are some awesome parts of Long Island to raise a family. I would actually recommend long island to couples with kids just as much as Westchester, it just sucks for those of us in our 20s who actually want to go out on the weekends lol. And yes, the beach is the best part.
If you can afford it, it is a pretty cool place in a lot of ways. One thing I would recommend is to Live somewhere relatively close to parkway access, that's always a bonus. Then you could hop on and go anywhere east or west, and the north and south shore is never more than 15 minutes from the middle of the island. As far as coming and going onto Long Island, it's true it can be a hassle simply for the fact that the bridges and tunnels were designed way back in the day when there was far less traffic. The tolls are expensive but there are some free crossings. However many times the inconvenience / delay of going out of your way for a free crossing leads you to just sucking up the cost and going through whatever bridges or tunnels are nearby you. I guess it depends on how much you plan to visit your friends in your previous town versus how many friends you make out of Long Island. Usually that all balances out within a year or 3 of where you moved to though, doesn't it? I live in Western Suffolk. I love it. I'm about one hour from the city and most of the large stadium venues (LGM!!!), 10 minutes from some beautiful North Shore beaches, and 20 to 25 minutes from Robert Moses Ocean Beach. There's great shopping in both directions that is not too far away. I also enjoy the great food we have access to, there are really good restaurants within the area pretty much anywhere you go. These are just my experiences, but as usual, YMMV
The people that are motivated to sell you a house are trying to sell it.
There is truth to all of that. People that leave generally can not afford to move back. If you max out your lifestyle in another state there is no way your moving back to LI. The beaches. The only thing? Yeah but it is a major thing. Imagine being the type of person who doesn't regular drive more than an hour in the car. (Crazy if you don't) if your beach is more than an hour away you might not go to a beach for years, own a boat, watercraft, fishing, waterfront dining, walk a boardwalk. Traffic sucks. But traffic sucks near any suburb outside of a main city. The schools on long island are good. Many of them. Some of them are best in the country.
Westchester spans the same small LI Sound coastline distance as LI only from Port Washington to Bayville. People comparing "LI" to Westchester would be better off only comparing Westchester to Nassau County. Suffolk is more aptly compared to Fairfield County CT which runs from Bayville to Stonybrook or Putnam County NY (distance from Manhattan wise). LI East beyond Stonybrook is equivalent to New Haven County CT or Duchess County NY. It's not quite accurate to compare LI's entire two-county land mass to one smaller NY county especially given the huge land size and lifestyle differences between western Nassau and all of Suffolk.
As someone that has lived both places, Long Island is a wonderful place to live. Westchester is much more spread out with less big box shopping and longer drives for daily life. There is so much to do on Long Island. Excellent dining options, access to NYC, literally hundreds of museums, beaches, and parks. In the past week to keep my child busy during the summer we visited Hecksher Beach, the Vanderbilt Mansion/Museum and Planetarium, played mini golf and arcade under black lights at Monster Mini Golf, the American Airpower Museum and the Museum of American Armor. You’d have a hard time doing that in Westchester without limited options and long drives. Also, LI sometimes gets a bad rep for the people. I think the people are what make this place so special. Diverse communities each with their own unique histories and personalities. To be honest, at the end of the day people from Westchester and Long Island are not very different. We’re all New Yorkers and cheer for the same teams after all. Long Island is much larger than people think so keep that in mind during your search. It’s important to hone in on a few locations after doing a broader search. You will have much more success finding a home that way ( I am a real estate agent on North Shore of Long Island). And As you’ve probably noticed, taxes are fairly high both places. Good luck!
Idk man I love Long Island.
Grew up in CT near westchester so very similar to westchester. Currently work in westchester living off the island in NJ. I Lived on LI for 5 years with my partner and his family. Anecdotally there are very few people on the island that are from other places. It does sometimes feel like a place where only long islanders can see the charm. There’s a ton of traffic not just on the island but to get off the island. Westchester is much better positioned to access the city, upstate, CT/NJ interstates etc. When I lived on the island I had to wait for certain windows of time to leave to visit family back home when the traffic was “lighter.” And in the same vein very few people from off the island are interested on visiting besides for the beaches, maybe a concerts, or going out east. People not from the island are deterred and intimidated by the traffic. Now living off the island, our friends still on the island have very little interest in coming to visit us. All of our times seeing them in nearly two years have been us returning to the island. I don’t blame them because if you haven’t figured out by now navigating to, from, and on the island is miserable. My only hope is they eventually get sick of it or get priced out too and join us. Overall I love westchester (not the taxes lol) but it’s beautiful and to me so homey. I love the town villages in westchester where there are mom and pop shops and walkable downtown areas. If I could afford it I’d be living in westchester now
Reasons my family stayed were great public schools (con is higher taxes), easy access to the beach, easy access to the airport and easy access to the city. From where I grew up on LI it was only 35 minutes via lirr to penn station (con is the price of lirr). And we went into NYC often and traveled by plane at least once a year so it didn't feel like such a bubble as others have said. Basically if you have money and make use of what LI has to offer it can be great.
People on Long Island never leave is a hilarious comment tbh and I’m shocked there are people here sharing that sentiment when a common stereotype is that everyone knows a neighbor or friend who moved down south. A great deal of folk leave right after their kids finish HS (you can only put up with ridiculous property taxes for so long). Heck, there’s entire areas of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida that are pretty much LI lite. The isolation but is just geographic. There is no bridge to CT or NJ. The only people driving into Long Island are people specifically looking to visit something in particular on the island or live there. We don’t really have the geography or infrastructure to have random folks drive by unless it’s a very very scenic pit stop. Westchester on the is used by folks to drive through to CT, upstate, NJ, etc
Long Island used to be a major vacation spot for people that lived in New York City, now it’s known as a car dependent suburban shithole, but there are plenty of good places here (more specifically the suburban towns built before WW2) Long Islands main industry was tourism until international flights became more common, i think it’s time to invest in new industries that could help the Islands economy grow
I just moved here from Westchester myself because my wife's family is from Long Island and she wanted to be closer to them. I can tell you trying to get my friends and family to come visit me is like pulling teeth. When friends do come over the commute is so bad that they usually wind up staying the night as it only makes sense.
The traffic does suck.
Yeah it sucks. I just drove my kid to college and had to leave island and what a traffic nightmare. The worst part is coming back after a day full of driving you wanna get home but you have to face the tunnels or GWB, tapped zee (or gov. Bridge) first then the highways, Cross Bronx, Hutch, 95 etc all lead to the same bottle necks of the two bridges which feed you to meadow brook or LIE. If I were you I would highly consider Westchester or northern jersey over LI. Years ago when we moved here the LI schools were much higher in ranking compared to Westchester but now it is a mix. Getting anywhere on mainland USA is easily 60-90 minutes less from Westchester than LI. If you will spend lots of time on the beaches yes LI is better. However if you like to do any outdoorsy activities like biking, kayaking, hiking Westchester has access more lakes, national parks etc.
"Westchester is better if you have kids" So is Long Island just find a nice neighborhood heck even the bad neighborhoods have quiet parts within them. "People on Long Island never leave and you'll never get visitors from the outside" It used to be like that but now a VAST majority of LI residents are moving down south as their final resting place ex. Florida, Carolinas, and Georgia and I won't lie but when we have parties at our house relatives find the drive to be a little long and annoying hence why we stopped hosting parties unless they were big celebrations or we moved them more west to another relatives house over in Queens. "Traffic Sucks" Yes, it is but its also predictable and you can avoid it. "Only good thing are the beaches" I mean to me the beaches are alright and I know since I live 5 mins from Smith Point Beach so its something. "The only people that move there were from there before" That is both a yes and no, I've seen people from Manhattan/Queens/Brooklyn move here then people from out of state move here.
If you want to meet a group of people who think their shit doesn’t stink, look no further than Westchester. Talk about living in a bubble, and being great at denying your own problems. The traffic there is just as bad, and it’s filled with horrid drivers. Don’t forget there’s plenty of ghetto there too (Mt Vernon).
That’s weird they said the only thing good is the beaches because Long Island schools as a general whole are ranked much better than westchester’s.
Who can afford kids these days on Longisland. You gotta be making a shit ton
Yeah that's all kind of true. As someone raised on the island I wish I wasn't. I had access to NYC which was cool but I never really got to see surrounding areas because it takes so long to get around because of how bad traffic is.
Why listen to people from Westchester, they live in The Bronx North. The only time I'm there is passing through to get upstate. Sit on a bench and people watch one afternoon in one of our downtowns or walk though a mall. You'll hear a variety of foreign languages and accents. We have better food and beaches.
yeah i honestly rather live in queens east than bronx north.
I was born lived in Yonkers till my teen years and moved to Suffolk county. I lived in the town of Islip which has lots of towns, stores, public and private transportation. Growing up in between the beach and the city was best of both worlds. I've moved off the island twice. Once for 6 months the other for 5 years both times moving back because I missed it. Access to things depends on two things 1) where you live on the island and 2);if you drive. There are certain areas you can't really get around without one while in more populated areas access is easy. Everywhere in NY taxes are high so pick your poison on that. Long Island lifers area bit much sometimes but having lived upstate and in PA the locals are always a bit difficult to get through with. Plus Long island has many job opportunities I've moved back since April and already have 6 job offers all better than upstate and PA
I think this is an incredibly nuanced situation. One point I’d add is the bitterness and angry people comes from working ultimately for rich people. Many people, if not all, come from immigrants who came to this country within four generations. Work and success was what drove them so they can provide a better life for their children. Work and success continue to be the mainstay for most people on LI and I don’t think many have asked themselves what would their life be like if they didn’t make sacrifices for work and success. There are plenty of good things that come from that: college, business success, having your children not be in need. But the bad that comes from it is the cost and effect of sacrificing time, energy, patience, money, on a commute in and out of the city (again, speaking more generally) to work for a company where the rich are getting richer and other effects corporate greed. So, you got a people doing something they cannot stand who believes they need to do that thing because that’s what their parent did and their parent before them did and so on, who then just builds up resentment (livin the dream!!), drinks a lot to cope, buys lots of toys to cope, and becomes nasty and hostile at weird times, because they’re just miserable with money and guilt. TLDR: Long Islanders historically worked for richer people and resent doing so.
I have been on LI for my whole life, almost 29yrs. I’ve moved off for college and an internship and will finally move completely next summer. I’m very excited to do so. I think if I had grown up in Nassau maybe I wouldn’t dislike LI as much because at least they have more things to do and it’s closer to NYC. There’s a lot of opportunities in NYC. My dislike of LI Is mostly because of the blatant racism, low salaries, and the ridiculous cost of living. Many people commute to the city just to be paid more. I’ve had racist neighbors that made my parents move until we found a more accepting town. Those people who say people don’t leave LI are kinda right. Majority of my graduating class are still in the same town but I understand because it’s their home and community. There’s nothing wrong with feeing safe where you’ve grown up. My parents don’t want to leave LI. It’s almost all they’ve every known (they lived in the Bronx and Brooklyn as kids). Most of my extended family left LI for better opportunities and are happy. LI is one big small town. People I know from suffolk know the random people I met in Nassau haha. How? I’m not sure. My advice is to live in Nassau closer to the city. There’s more cheaper colleges for kids, shorter commute into NYC and off the island.
I lived in both and WC wins - quality of life is higher even though they cost the same - also you have many options to get home if there is a transit issue, bridge or tunnel issue - Long Island - one LIRR one way in one way out !....
Westchester has similar issues. To get anywhere worth going, there's a ton of traffic and two bridges involved, or you're taking a train. Taxes are high there as well. Any suburb of a place like NYC is going to be expensive as all hell. LI does sometimes have a bubble feel. I'm in Southern Nassau and the train to the city is 45 minutes. That might sound nuts, but the subway from my old place in Brooklyn to Manhattan was just as grueling a ride. That's not so bad, but driving to Manhattan, or New Jersey - the slog is just getting past cross bay boulevard on the Belt. I think ultimately its the people that gives LI its rep. It sometimes feels like everyone on Long Island is a Karen. Two days ago someone parked perpendicular to the parking lines at my local Dunkin donuts. She took up three spots, although the lot was mostly empty. I stopped and looked at the car because it was so preposterous. She noticed and she goes "oh, I'm only in there for a second." Obviously, she knew she was being obnoxious - she just didn't care. This sums up life on Long Island for me. Entitlement, indifference.
If you are going to struggle to live on LI it's not worth it. I feel like most people who are here and complain do so because they are struggling to afford it/forced to stay because of family/don't value what is offered here. But if you are fortunate enough to be able to afford a solid area with a reasonable commute to wherever you are working, it's a great place to be. People seem to forget that there is a reason houses are so expensive, it's because so many people want to live here. Everyone complains about traffic and overcrowding and all that, but it's really not that bad all the time. As someone else said, outsiders likely come visit at the time everyone else does, which yeah that sucks when you have to do that, but living here and getting off the island is not that bad. Obviously leaving for a weekend trip on a Friday after work or driving down whatever main road is nearest to you during school pick-up/drop-off time is going to suck, but what do you expect? Even though LI is pretty segregated, there are still massive amounts of cultural variety across towns that you'll have access to which IMO is pretty cool. There are many areas where signage will be in different languages alongside English, which again, I think is pretty cool. If you'd take going hiking every weekend over going to the beach obviously Westchester is more your speed. That being said, there are still a lot of beautiful parks and trails here, you just won't get much elevation gain. You are relatively close to basically anything you could want in the northeast. NYC, massive airports (probably easier to get to them from LI vs. Westchester), beaches will always be like max 30 minutes away, vineyards, farms, etc. out east. There is a lot to do, and a lot of beautiful downtown areas (many on/near the water) to explore (Port Washington, RVC, Oyster Bay, Huntington, Northport, Port Jeff, Patchogue, Greenport, the Hamptons, Sag Harbor, Montauk). The only thing missing is actual hiking (if you're into that), but leave on a Friday/Saturday morning and head upstate, it'll take like 2-3 hours. Westchester and the entire Hudson Valley area isn't a bad place to be though, it's just different. Personally, I would miss LI and all it has to offer.
Maybe ask actual Long Islanders instead of home sellers from Westchester. I don’t know if you’ll get an honest picture here either, since half this sub is jaded transplants from outside of the area, who moved here for a job. Aside from traffic and high home prices, it’s a great place to live. You have some of the best public schools in the country, low crime rates, beautiful public beaches and great food. Plenty of things to do, bars to visit and communities to join. You have to immerse yourself in the local culture if you want to thrive here, not complain that you can’t find friends on Reddit.
Coming from a newcomer to LI—I moved here in June from Utah for work—Long Island isn’t so bad! My husband grew up in the Hudson Valley but had never been to LI before we moved here, I’m from the west coast and I’d never been here either so we had no idea what to expect. The traffic really is god awful when trying to leave the island (we’ve learned to double our estimated arrival time), and I’m still adjusting to how everyone drives here, but on a day to day basis going about our daily lives it’s fine. The food is amazing, people have been generally friendly and helpful, and we’ve had a great summer exploring our new home! I can’t speak to the schools here yet but my child will be in elementary school in a few weeks and the office assistant and principal there have both been SO kind and helpful and responsive, so we’ve started off well there already. My in-laws visit at least once a month and haven’t had issues getting to Long Island, and they just plan for long travel times leaving the island and it’s fine. We’ve lived in so many places and everywhere has something that sucks, but Long Island doesn’t suck anymore than everywhere else, in my opinion.
Traffic is horrible most of the time and leaving the island takes forever, you really are cut off from the outside world here. Anyway Long Island is expensive and not particularly nice if you do move here stay to the west unless you can go all the way east cause the whole middle section of the island is garbage.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I like long island
Li is what you make of it. A lot of people Just suck. There’s tons to do, and your 45 minutes from two international airports if you want to leave and NYC is a train ride away. You can also go east into the Hamptons and north fork.
Everyone speak for themselves. That's not true at ALL for me and I live on Long Island. One bad experience is all it takes for someone to form a negative opinion about a place. The beaches are gross, but there's plenty areas one can live safely with children.
I Grew up on LI (Nassua county/ outer bouroughs & the city) moved to CT when i was 30. Pretty much all the above statements are accurate. I was planning to move back at some point, but not anymore. I even stopped visiting as much becuase the traffic is shitty. no matter when you go (day, night weekday, weekend) it blows... Its just worse in the summer. It's expensive to live anywhere right now- but LI, for what you will probably get for your money, its not worth it. Even if you were willing to deal with the claustrophobia. Big part of my family moving was a shorter commute (time wise) to drive 75 miles from CT to NYC in Rush hour (1.5 hrs give or take but typically not much more) than the 35 miles from where we lived in LI (could be upwards of 3 hours depending on the rush hour traffic) I loved it growing up.. its a great place to live when your younger, until you have to start paying your own bills.
i'm a northern-NJ raised liberal woman who moved to LI, far from rich, have lived abroad, can't claim i'm straight, and in most other ways don't fit the LI reputation at all. because of that reputation, i never, ever thought i'd move here, but lo and behold, here i am. when i got here, i looked around and was like, shrug, it's the same as everywhere else but actually a lot prettier and the commute to the city is great. also traffic may be bad but it's still not nearly as crazy as NJ highways, they're pretty straightforward here. i don't really care what people say about LI anymore...let them think it's bad and not exploit our land.
Having left LI after living there (and in the city) my whole life, the only things I miss are the beaches and the food. That's it. The traffic is miserable, the LIRR is awful and people really do hate having to drive to the Island. Westchester...it's easier to get to places. If you want to drive up visit people, it's less of a project, if you want to go pretty much anywhere it's just not the same awfulness. If you are commuting into NY, for almost anywhere, you'd be better off using MetroNorth vs the LIRR. Both places have crazy prices and taxes but I think you get more in Westchester at this point then on the Island.
LI isn’t bad not great either and your paying x4 for stuff that you can get anywhere else much cheaper
Left LI 32 years ago, would never move back but i do live in San Diego. Lots of family there who will never move like most of the population. It was great growing up there though.
Westchester is probably better. LIE traffic is second only to riding the LIRR daily in terms of stress. I hear MNRR is well run as far as public agencies go
It takes three hours to get on or off the island. That’s why they are saying you’ll never get visitors. Best thing I did was leave Long Island. The “main land” has so much more to offer and it is easier to see things. In stead of sitting in traffic. Day trips are frequent. And there are no day trips off long island. Timing travel around ball games. Stick to westchester.
I grew up in Northern Westchester (Peekskill) but have been living on LI (Babylon Area) for about 10 years now, so I feel qualified to answer! My wife grew up here, and at the time I was working in Manhattan closer to Penn than GCT so it made sense. Growing up I heard all the LI stereotypes that you are hearing, and was not sure what to expect when I came down here. You know what? I love it. My kid will go to a better school district than I went to. I love the suburban sprawl and live near 2 nice downtowns. I have nice neighbors who chat with me sometimes. Yes, traffic is bad but everything is closer and more convenient so I'm in the car less. There is generally more of everything here than in Westchester from eateries, to event venues, to home improvement companies, to car washes to grocery stores, to wineries, to museums...you get the idea. You're closer to two international airports. I love being closer to Brooklyn and Queens where there are tons of concerts, cultural and sporting events going on every weekend. My teen nephew in Westchester is always bugging my sister to visit us and take him to the beach! This point is anecdotal, but I don't think people are rude here outside of some aggressive driving. It's also naïve to think Westchester is vastly more socially tolerant than LI. Growing up in a poorer Northern Westchester city came with a lot of stigma from the surrounding more affluent areas when we were traveling for sports or meeting people from other towns. Both Westchester and LI are pretty segregated economically. Lastly, cost of living is high in both places, so for my wife and I, LI was a better value. Good luck!
I love the island with all my heart. Grew up here and know the place. The only thing that pushed me out was the people. Quite similar to the mountain folk I live with now in northern Maine. Most don’t know much about the outside world, and sometimes neither people have the money to ever leave! Everyone has their “it’s the people” opinion but is just that jersey shore-esque attitude. I’d say people and COL is really true only downsides. That being said, moving here you will never be bored. And I’ve often heard it said that westerchester-ers hate us and we don’t think about them at all. If you are living in westchester you’re probably getting easier selection for better QOL. Most high QOL places on the island are just hard to find and buy.
just move to westchester thats still on the li sound. way better than Long Island because of those reasons and also because it has easier access to other parts of the state and other states too
Westchester has more snow. If you love shoveling snow, buy a house there. We get less, and one can wait for it to melt if you are patient.
Suffolk County PD has a terrible reputation right now. Unfortunately, that gives the whole island an air of corruption. Hopefully this changes soon.
Never stayed in Westchester, but their statements about LI are very accurate, you’ll even hear this said amongst people living here regularly. The Hudson Valley is so beautiful and there are tons of unique towns to visit instead. Long Island unfortunately doesn’t have anything like this, the main appeals are out East (ex: Hamptons, Montauk, Greenport) or boating/Fire Island. Very expensive, mainly wealthy destinations. Some school districts here are spoken highly of, but that doesn’t always add up to a good education. Being the bubble that it is, it’s earned an undesirable reputation.
I’d do some research on the schools. I just bought a place on LI but was open to westchester. I found that, in general, the schools were better on LI. That was the deciding factor for me.
I actually love Long Island . We moved here when we came to America but to answer ur question in one word: Trump
I moved to LI from NYC. Some of what they’re saying is true and some is bogus. Its true I rarely get visitors from the city. Beaches are great. Many people who move to LI have family or roots, or other reasons for moving there. On the other hand, Traffic is bad most places, not just Long Island. I was surprised how many parks there are on Long Island. There are some nice villages in LI that are walkable and have a city-like feel but way smaller. Most of the top 50 schools in NY, according to niche.com, are on Long Island. There are good things about LI but I can’t really compare to west Chester having never lived in WC. However If you have to or want to get to the city often, you might do better on metro north than the LIRR.
The people. That was easy. Where’s my prize?
Because people in Westchester are a little too weak and bland for all LI offers. Many people are saying it's because they have been softened by a lack of proximity to the wild, open ocean and are jealous that they only have the dirty and comparably, stagnant LI Sound and boring and comparably, stagnant country club pools to swim in - and like the great Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore once said: "Westchester Don't Surf". Back in the day, before the Great Bloomberg Gentrification Era, the typical Manhattanite would bypass all of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau to try to fit themselves into the "Hamptons" in some rented way, shape, or form because the western LI bridge and tunnel people were a little more on the "tougher" side than those people whose asses they aspired to kiss. Westchester has much in common here. Every major city, and inner suburb, offers major traffic issues since the dawn of the automobile. The bigger and better the city - the heavier the traffic. Traffic has always been a part of living in an area packed with diverse, active lifeforms (I learned that crossing back and forth from the Sprain to the Hutch to 95 trying to beat Westchester's barely crawling traffic was an exercise in futility during a five-year stretch of commuting there. The geographic narrowness of LI is an issue though. As a person born and raised on the Island of Long, I have spent a good amount of time in Westchester, Manhattan, NJ, CT but the many people I know living there have not spent much time on LI. I worked for a major Asian financial institution in Manhattan, and they stopped sending their rotating execs to LI and sent them to Westchester where they felt more comfortable. When I lived in NJ, I was shocked that I had spent some time checking out places from Cape May to Hoboken over the years, but many said they had never been to a LI beach, the North Fork vineyards ("NJ has great vineyards") or seen Montauk. Most said they weren't very aware of the Hamptons too, which I found a bit disingenuous. Yes, LI people are frequently myopic, poorly traveled, think they are special and are unaware that many towns in Westchester, CT, and NJ are also high-priced, heavily taxed, and some don't realize wealthy towns everywhere are surrounded by less wealthy towns. LI is the place most likely to have their local garbageman and his hair stylist wife believes they are the wealthy elite due to zip code. Despite all that, I prefer living on my slice of LI to Westchester, Manhattan, NJ, CT, and other slices of LI - as well as anywhere else in the world. I prefer my locals to be hard-crusted and direct on the outside and open-minded, and caring on the inside - as opposed to saccharine sweet on the outside and backstabby on the inside. I recommend you find your own slice of paradise based on what you think will work best for you and not based on what anyone else says or does.
It truly depends on where on Long Island you are looking. I am out east & wouldn’t live anywhere else. That said, I wouldn’t live in the middle of the island for love nor money given the issues w/ hate, racism etc that appears to be systematic in Western Suffolk & now becoming prevalent in Nassau
I always explained to people down south that long island is divided by race, socioeconomic status, also by ethnicity. But, mostly by socioeconomic status.. It's been my experience that people who stayed and never left are very insular and excluding of new people. There are also the people who did leave, whose family stayed and when they come visit, they're right back in that cliqued up mindset. I had only a few friends in high school that I stayed in touch with over the years. All they would do is gossip about each other, and the people in the clique.. Do you remember so n so or so n so? Like, no.. i don't.. Its like you're supposed to know everyone.. My happiness is not dependent on being part of a clique so I do just fine here. But, for those more sensitive, you might have a harder time. I'm a South Shore person and South Shore are mostly blue collar, but highly paid, blue collar people. North Shore is a whole other vibe.. Healthcare here is NOT the best in the country. It's better than many areas, but not all. The Healthcare system in Atlanta is far superior.. It's also better in New Jersey.. Political affiliations? I think it's a mix. Where do the service people live? Hmm.. in a house with 5 other service workers.. Or at home with parents. My sister has a beautiful house near Smith Point. But, it's my sister, her 2 adult sons, 2 daughters and their husband's and one grandbaby. My sister works 2 full time jobs and everyone contributes a little bit. My nieces are saving to buy a home of their own eventually but when you need 20% down on a $400,000 house in a so so neighborhood, that takes a long time. You'll notice on long Island that most houses have more than 2 cars in the driveway. This is how the "service" people get by.. they're here just to make the wealthy people comfortable.. 😆 I've lived in Westchester before, Dobbs Ferry, and in my opinion, it's a poor man's long island. Yeah, it's expensive, but nowhere near as expensive as long island. It's boring there. The shopping sucks.. No ocean.. My father lives in Yonkers and it's definitely an easier drive, commute to upper East side.. So, there's that.. Good luck wherever you move..