Well, you live there, so you’d probably know, but when i visit New York it always seems to me that, leaving aside the issue of rent/mortgage, it’s not an outrageously expensive city.
Sure, putting a roof over your head costs an arm and a leg, and there are plenty of luxury things to spend your money on if you are rich, but it’s also easy to eat out at perfectly decent places for reasonable prices, and many other things don’t seem especially overpriced. The sheer volume of people in New York, and the competition for business, seems to keep prices of many things quite reasonable, in my experience. And transit is pretty cheap, especially if you get weekly/monthly unlimited ride tickets.
That’s just my experience as a semi-frequent (a few times a year) visitor.
whole bean writes:
> Americo-Australianian relations are at an all-time low.
I don’t think that’s true. The cutesy image that some Americans in the 1980’s had of Australia is gone now, I suppose. That doesn’t mean that Americans like Australia and Australians any less, though.
I worked for Yahoo! over here for a while and every few years he’d try to sue us because of the company name 
I’m American, but I did a study abroad program in Australia when I was in college.
I’ll echo the actual Australians by saying that Outback is a rather inaccurate representation of Australia.
But this brings me to one of the most hilarious meals I had in Australia. We were in Byron Bay, NSW (which is a bit of a tourist trap, I’m afraid) and had dinner at “Texas Joe’s Steakhouse” or somesuch. Basically, it was a cheesy fake “American” restaurant, an order of magnitude cheesier and faker than Chili’s, Friday’s, etc. It was just… awkward. In a creepy, bizarro-world, themepark way. I think that my reaction to this place could be similar to an Australian’s reaction to Outback.