Quarterly NY Times Suburban Angst Article

Seemingly as a public service, the NY Times publishes an occasional article about why Manhattan is so wonderful and why the 'burbs are cultural wastelands with bad restaurants. Apparently, according to the article, the suburbs are so bad that a few people are moving back to Manhattan after a brief stint in West Orange or Westchester. Here is the Times most recent public service effort.

Even though the article made me cringe at some points -wealthy people complaining about wealthy people problems tends to do that to me - the article does have some good points.

Snip...

"You go to these little towns and they are very charming and sweet and have all these cute little shops," said Brian Lover, who put his West Orange, N.J., house back on the market just three months after moving there. "But I think when you live in these areas full time, those neighborhood shops aren't so cute. And those neighborhood restaurants that look so great, you know how bad they really are."

Mr. Lover, 42, a vice president at the Corcoran Group, and his wife, Kristina Rinaldi, 41, an interior decorator, decided to give up their one-bedroom rental on West 55th Street when they had a daughter, Tallulah. They wanted to live in Montclair, N.J., a popular magnet for exurbanites. Outmatched in bidding wars, they expanded their search to neighboring West Orange. There they became besotted by "an old English Tudor with a slate roof, character, an acre and a half of land," said Mr. Lover, who worked as a fashion advertising director for Esquire magazine at the time.

In July 2001 they bought the house for $480,000; it came with a tinge of unreality. "Every day when I came home, I would say to myself, 'I really am a king and this is a castle, and who do I think I am?' "

Full article...