NYC is expensive, cramped, dirty, and crowded, true, but also the world's cultural capital, which means, practically, that you can go to any number of the world's greatest and most iconic museums, e.g. the Met, MOMA, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, the Museum of Natural History, and on and on. You can go to hear the New York Philharmonic, see great opera, see the best ballet companies in the country, or any number of incredible shows on any given night. You have Broadway, Off-Broadway, and smaller theater of a size that dwarfs any other city in the country. You have by far the most diverse set of restaurants in the country. In one neighborhood in Queens alone, you can eat at any of dozens of Indian restaurants in an enormous Indian community, or dozens of Chinese restaurants in an enormous Chinese community, eat at a Tibetan or Burmese restaurant, choose from at least three distinct types of Thai food, eat Columbian or Ecuadorean or Peruvian food in an enormous Latin American neighborhood (all this is in Jackson Heights), and on and on. In Manhattan and Brooklyn, you have the haute cuisine, but also great cheap food from all over everywhere you look. You have the Giants, Jets, Knicks, Nets, Yankees, Mets, Rangers, Islanders, and Red Bulls to see if you like sports. NYRR sets up races virtually every weekend all year, plus track meets indoors and out. You can run on beautiful trails in Central Park, VCP, or Forest Hills Park. A short drive out of the city gets you to Rockefeller Park, where there are amazing carriage trails. If you like bars and clubs, there are none nicer or more varied than in NYC. You have the center of the financial industry, the publishing industry, and many others. You have Columbia, NYU, the New School, Cornell (setting up a huge campus on an island in the East River, oddly enough), Fordham, and the CUNY system. You have google. You have the best newspaper in the country, but also a choice of many others, including the Daily News, Newsday, the Village Voice, and many catering to various immigrant groups. This is just scratching the surface. It is not for everyone and you need a good deal of money to live comfortably.