We all know one—that friend or relative who split New York City recently for the common cascade of reasons: high home prices, high rents, high living costs, high noise, high stress, or too much getting high or all of the above.

And when these people exit our five boroughs, they really exit: City Comptroller Bill Thompson’s office analyzed the Census Bureau’s recent American Community Survey and found that about two-thirds of the 190,150 people age 25 to 64 who left in 2005 moved not to the green suburbs to get just a daily break from the city grind, but outside of the metro area altogether.

Nearly a quarter of them split for the South, with 14.9 percent settling in Florida and 5 percent in Georgia, especially Atlanta. (And, no, the Florida settlers weren’t all ancient—far from it: over 90 percent were under 65.) Another 4.4 percent went to California. Only about 36 percent settled in New Jersey or elsewhere in New York state.

About 40 percent left big-city life altogether, opting out of the metro region as well as out of those large cities that traditionally compete with New York. L.A.? It claimed 2.6 percent of our people; Boston, even less at 2 percent. Wheezing Philadelphia (motto: Please Let Us Be Your Sixth Borough! We Got Rid of the Rocky Statue!)—claimed 3 percent; San Francisco and Chicago less than 2 percent. Atlanta led all cities with 4.5 percent. The rest of the percentages were dotted all over American exurbia.

In the end, of course, who went where depends on why. New Yorkers with younger children were more likely than childless people to leave the city, according to the comptroller, and those that left and stayed in the metro region—most of them still work in the city, trading the costs of living here for longer commutes.  read more »

I asked someone who would know, Ali Abunimah (of electronic intifada), who lives in Chicago. Abunimah wrote me back:

I used to know Obama when he was my state senator. I met him several times in different contexts, and he was often very progressive about Israel-Palestine. He attended fundraisers in the Palestinian community, one in which the keynote speaker was Edward Said. That's what really made me believe in him at first. But then it all went out the window when he started his climb up the greasy pole. I wrote about this a bit in the book [One Country, an argument for a binational state in all of former Palestine], and how disappointed I was to see him basically adopting AIPAC positions. I went to see his legislative staffer in DC a couple of weeks ago and left a signed copy of the book. I got an email, ostensibly from Obama (I am sure people write these things for him), thanking me. Basically the guy has calculated that pissing off the lobby is not the way to the top, so I will eat my shoe (like Tucker Carlson) if he ever says anything remotely useful about Palestine. He is a master triangulator.

Poppa's got a brand new bag!

The other pattern I noticed was that Obama givers had sometimes given to Hillary and Chuck Schumer. I got the impression that Hillary and Chuck had really pulled out the stops for Obama in '04, as representing the best of American idealism (who's cryin' now?). None of this is inconsistent with Abunimah's analysis above. It shows (as I said yesterday) that the Israel lobby is not based in a control room, or even Chuck Schumer's office. Concern for Israel pervades the liberal American Jewish success story. That community functions, in politics, as a monolith. And a gateway. At fundraisers at fancy apartments in N.Y.C., a congressional candidate will be asked, Where do you stand on the settlements in the West Bank?

Richard Meier, starchitect

• Is there anything more fascinating than mutinous discontent among the biggest (and smallest) power brokers in Manhattan? Probably not. There's a petition going around protesting the new REBNY portal--which The Observer reported on earlier this month. Back then, REBNY's Fred Peters joked: "We're trying to negotiate toward the point of equal unhappiness." Indeed. [Curbed]
• Tragically, a 4,000-square-foot condo at Richard Meier's 176 Perry Street building is having lots of trouble selling. After lux price slashing, the place is down to a (modest?) $7.65 million. [D.I./NY Mag]
• Our friend Paolo Zampolli is getting some serious attention. And he deserves it: the man is inventing model real esate. ("Model" as in "extremely attractive" girls "who dress accordingly.") [The Australian, via Gawker]
• The fifth annual EPA National Awards for Smart Growth Achievement have been handed out to lucky cities like Witchita, Chicago and Winooski, Vt. And why not New York City? Because we're too busy paying attention to model real estate agents and price-slashed star condos and juicy REBNY gossip. [Arch News Now]
- Max Abelson]]> http://www.observer.com/node/35387#comments Real Estate Chicago Fred Peters Manhattan Richard Meier Tue, 21 Nov 2006 10:23:41 -0500 Observer Staff 35387 at http://www.observer.com