Of Love and New York City Real Estate

Homes define New York City. More than any of the cultural attractions
the city is known for, the one feature of the city that sticks out in most
people's minds when they visit the city for the first time is the endless – as
far as the eye can see – ocean of buildings. The vast majority
of these are residential, and there is the fundamental New York City in a nutshell: Gone
are the suburbs, gone the typical city's dance of urban and suburban; gone
the grassy fields at the edge of town... In New York, all is city, and thus
all is mankind's culture.
This overwhelming sense of a culture permeating all the physical space of
one's existence shines in much of the world's memory. Some are disturbed
by it, but many are enthralled. Indeed, much of the city's population
first came to the city and saw the city's lights and bars, nightlife and endless
ocean of buildings for the first time with a certain powerful sense of awe.
There is a downside, though, to so much of the world recollecting New York
City with starry-eyed thoughts: the worlds a big place, and though you
wouldn't know it by looking out at those New
York apartments, that ocean of
buildings does end, and it just can't fit the whole world.
And this is the modern world, so the laws of supply and demand waxes powerful
just about everywhere, especially in NYC, the seat of American Capitalism. So,
homes here are more expensive than just about any place in the world.
So expensive here, in fact, that real estate concerns sometimes parry in people's
minds even with the holy grail of all human existence, love. Stories
abound in real estate offices here of couples that either did or didn't get
married at a certain time because of concerns over NYC apartments.
For every example of the couple that had known each other for a few weeks
before deciding to snatch up a great condo, there are stories of those loving
partners who simply loved their home neighborhoods more. When it came
time to move in, they just couldn't settle on a place. So, their relationship
drifted for a while, and relationships that drift are relationships that might
die: And so the prime part of human supply and demand – the need
for shelter, or – the real estate market, runs up from the most mundane,
practical part of life to bid challenge in mankind's mind with the loftiest
emotion of all.
But then again, great New York apartments are quite hard to come by. Almost
as hard as great lovers. So, here in a city where man has covered the
vast majority of nature with tar, concrete and buildings, real estate can be
as important for some as love.

Nicholas Adams Judge is a freelance writer specializing in business, politics and economics. He holds a B.A. in political science and will begin his PhD studies in political economy and public opinion next fall. He has studied economics and political science at a number of different institutions, both here and in the U.K., including Amherst College, Warwick University, Oxford University and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
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