Is Suburgatory's characterisation of the NY suburbs remotely correct?

Suburgatory is a TV show about a teen girl and her family who move from inner city Manhattan to a outer-suburb (unnamed).

The suburban people are shown as incredibly affluent. Lots of expensive fashion and plastic surgery.

I get the impression from the show that in the US, the most wealthy people live not in the inner city, but out in the suburbs. I'm not sure it this is correct. Is it a fictional component of the show? Is it a exaggeration?

Where I am from, Perth western Australia this is not true at all: (most of) the inner suburbs/CBD are incredibly pricy and (most of) the outer suburbs have a fairly poor reputation (Mostly jokes about the prevalence of alcholism, and/or stabbings). Perth does however have things like the "Hollow City" phenomenon.

realism suburgatory

Best Answer

There is a little of both. NYC is an incredibly expensive place to live, where an average apartment runs around $1500/month, up to places that are over $7000/month. You can certainly find one cheaper, but that's about average.

In the suburbs, you can generally find a decent apartment for around $1000/month, depending on where you look.

In the suburbs, you also get what I hold most precious; real estate. There are very few houses in NYC, but in the suburbs they are everywhere.

Also, because things are cheaper in the suburbs, you have a wider range of income makers there. An average couple can afford to pay $700/month in rent in a suburb, whereas they would be really struggling in NYC to pay their bills.

So, it really depends on an individual's preference. In Darien, where I grew up, many large company exec's owned homes because they liked the slower pace, the quieter environment to raise a child, and the better school systems. However, I'm sure there are just as many, if not more, people who enjoy the fast-paced, "Open 24/7" environment of NYC and prefer to live there. The "affluent" suburbs they're probably portraying are towns like Darien, Greenwich and New Canaan, all within an hour of NYC but with average house prices close to $700,000.