Mass Exodus from NYC: Young NYers Join The Affluent Bolting The City As Lockdown Drives Professionals Out and Companies Accept Staff Permanently Working From Home

It’s as if Governor killer Cuomo and NYC village idiot Wilhem de Blasio took a machine gun to this city and opened fire. And haven’t stopped firing.

This is all self-inflicted.

Exodus from NYC: The young join the rich in ditching the Big Apple as the coronavirus economic downturn drives professionals out and companies accept staff permanently working from home

• The coronavirus lockdown has left young New Yorkers reconsidering the city’s high cost of living
• People who can work remotely are eyeing the suburbs or contemplating moving back home with their parents
• A recent survey found 69% of people in tech and finance said they would leave New York if they were given the option to work from home permanently
• Twitter, Facebook and Spotify recently announced they will allow employees to work from home long-term
• Pat Stedman, 31, a dating and relationship coach, said the pandemic has only sped up his and his wife’s exodus from the city and now plans to work remotely from overseas
• Many residents have also expressed concerns over whether New York City will successfully bounce back when it finally reopens in the coming months

By Karen Ruiz For Dailymail.com, 23 May 2020

Young people are joining the rich and are fleeing New York for the suburbs after the coronavirus lockdown left many professionals reconsidering city life as companies begin to permanently adopt work-from-home models.

As COVID-19 gripped the country in mid March, residents of New York City’s wealthiest neighborhoods fled to ride out the lockdown at their vacation homes, while many young people hunkered down in the suburbs with their parents.

Some were forced to break their leases and move back to their hometowns because they could no longer afford the city’s exorbitant rent prices after losing their jobs, while others have continued paying for their cramped city apartments while they shelter elsewhere.

The majority intend to return at the end of the lockdown period, but the economic impact of the pandemic as well as the shift to remote working has led some people to ditch the city for good.

Young people are joining the rich and are fleeing New York for the suburbs after the coronavirus lockdown left many professionals reconsidering city life as companies begin to permanently adopt work-from-home models.

As COVID-19 gripped the country in mid March, residents of New York City’s wealthiest neighborhoods fled to ride out the lockdown at their vacation homes, while many young people hunkered down in the suburbs with their parents.

Some were forced to break their leases and move back to their hometowns because they could no longer afford the city’s exorbitant rent prices after losing their jobs, while others have continued paying for their cramped city apartments while they shelter elsewhere.

The majority intend to return at the end of the lockdown period, but the economic impact of the pandemic as well as the shift to remote working has led some people to ditch the city for good.

Among them is Shelby Gutleber, who lost her job as a waitress in the Upper East Side in March and moved to Keansburg, in central New Jersey – a move she described as the best decision she ever made.

Young professionals are leaving New York City and flocking to smaller, less populated areas after the coronavirus pandemic left many to reconsider the city’s high cost of living. Pictured: Pat Stedman, 31, looks out at Manhattan after ending his lease on his Kips Bay apartment

New York City has been converted into a ghost town after the March 15 lockdown with thousands of residents fleeing to the suburbs to shelter. Pictured: A virtually empty Fifth Avenue on May 4

The 26-year-old was living in an apartment in Washington Heights and was finishing her degree in political science at Columbia University when the pandemic struck.

‘I was laid off and I couldn’t get unemployment. I just finally got it about two or three weeks ago. So thinking about paying $1,250 in rent when you’re unemployed is frightening,’ she told DailyMail.com.

‘On top of that my roommate and I didn’t get along so I was basically stuck in my room.’
Coronavirus cases and deaths in small East Coast towns where NYC ‘refugees’ have fled

Martha’s Vineyard, MA – 29 cases

Nantucket, MA – 39 cases

Newport, RI – 212 cases

Suffolk County, NY (The Hamptons) – 43,218 cases / 1,814 deaths

Cape May County, NJ (Ocean City) – 545 cases / 46 deaths

Ocean County, NJ (Jersey Shore) – 8,242 cases / 678 deaths

Monmouth County, NJ (Jersey Shore) – 7,724 cases / 543 deaths

Data as of Saturday, May 23

Facing financial uncertainty and an uncomfortable living situation, Shelby jumped on the opportunity to move back to the suburbs when her brother offered her a spare room in his house in April.

‘It’s been great. This pandemic is horrible in New York City and there is no place to get out.

‘Here I can hike and bike, walk, run, and go to a store without stepping foot on a subway. And no insanely high rent,’ she said.

The college graduate is among the hundreds of thousands of New York City residents who have fled the Big Apple between March 1 and May 1.

As the lockdown entered its third month, a New York Times report last week showed Manhattan’s overall population has fallen by almost 20 percent, with many residents flocking to small east coast towns or popular vacation home destinations.

The data, collected from smartphones, revealed usually-bustling Manhattan neighborhoods such as SoHo, the West Village, Morningside Heights, the Upper East Side, the Financial District, Midtown, Gramercy and Brooklyn Heights, emptied by at least 40 percent.

For New York City office workers, being able to work remotely has made it easier for them to relocate and do their jobs elsewhere during the pandemic.

But as cities begin reopening, a number of companies have announced plans to keep the work from home model for good, raising questions over whether employees will now flee major metropolitan areas for cheaper, and less densely populated regions.

Pat Stedman, a dating and relationship coach, said the health crisis has only helped speed up his and his wife’s exodus from the city which they were considering before the outbreak. The couple is staying in suburban New Jersey until they move overseasMargarita Lyadova (left) a partner manager for an ad tech company in New York City, let go of her Upper East Side apartment to move back home to Minnesota, and is now looking at cheaper markets. Sarah Moebius, 24, (center in brown) said she doesn’t ‘see the point’ in going back to New York City until she’s back at work

For Pat Stedman, 31, a dating and relationship coach, the health crisis has only helped speed up his and his wife’s exodus from the city which they were considering before the outbreak.

The couple ended the lease on their apartment in Kips Bay last week and are now living with Stedman’s parents in South Jersey until they make the move to Poland, where his wife is from.

The pair hope to buy an apartment and start a family overseas, and being able to work remotely has made it all the more convenient.

‘Poland is very family friendly and the cost of living is very low. It’s an opportunity to save a bunch of money,’ Stedman told DailyMail.com.

‘My business is remote, and my wife may be able to do the same with her job.’

‘That said, it’s hard to be in NYC now, all the energy has been sucked out of it. Aside from Central Park, it feels like a prison where everyone is afraid and subdued, not where people go to have fun and make things happen.

‘We spent last weekend there to soak it all up, and we know our time there is done. NYC will recover – it always does – but it’ll be a different NYC after, just like after 9/11 the city changed.’

Earlier this month Twitter announced it will allow some employees to continue working from home on a permanent basis – a concept other tech giants are also weighing up as they prepare for the post-pandemic era.

Music streaming service Spotify followed suit on Friday, telling employees that they can work from home until 2021.

A recent survey conducted by anonymous professionals group Blind, also found 69 per cent of New Yorkers in the tech and finance field would consider relocating if they knew they could work from home permanently.

Eighteen per cent said they would leave the metro area, while 36 per cent said they would move out of the state altogether.

Fifteen per cent said they would leave the country.

The data was collated from responses from more than 4,000 employees at major tech companies including Facebook, Twitter, Uber and Amazon, in Seattle, San Francisco and New York.

Of those respondents, New York had the highest proportion of those eager to flee (37 per cent).

It reinforces the prospect that big cities could become shells of their former selves as office workers transition to working from home permanently, and huge headquarters, that were once an indicator of a company’s success, become an unnecessary expense.

A recent survey conducted by Blind found 69 per cent of New Yorkers in the tech and finance field would consider relocating if they knew they could work from home permanently

Pamela Geller Geller Report https://gellerreport.com/