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Paris, New York: living in legendary places

Published on June 17, 2025

There’s a certain allure in wanting to live in dream cities like Paris or New York. Parisian life makes a lot of people fantasize: the elegant neighborhoods, the packed café terraces… Netflix even made a series about it: Emily in Paris.

I lived in Paris for 5 years and life there is totally different — it’s commute-work-sleep. Life is expensive, apartments are tiny, you don’t live in the beautiful districts because they’re unaffordable, and public transit rides are long and tedious.

It’s well known: Paris is hell to live in, the opposite of the image painted by films.

I’ve never lived in New York, but I assume it’s the same — life there isn’t Sex and the City. You don’t live in the nicest parts of Manhattan in a 150 m² apartment; you’re way out in Queens or even New Jersey.

I was on vacation in Chicago in May. I noticed how our perception of a city changes depending on whether we’re there temporarily or permanently — and also depending on the season.

Chicago is a splendid city: the architecture is magnificent, the river cuts through downtown, and the lake borders it with its many beaches and marinas. The city is at the same latitude as Barcelona so the summer weather is great. I even caught myself browsing Zillow — Chicago is known for being affordable compared to other major U.S. cities.

But locals’ lives must be very different. They don’t live Downtown in the beautiful buildings near the lake, but out in the suburbs. And, just like in Paris, that’s a lot less dreamy. For the many summer visitors, the temperature is ideal. But in February, when the city empties out, it’s another story. There are cold waves of -10 °C (14 °F) for several days — and no one’s around then to observe the disadvantages of the metropolis.

Europoor vs Americarich

There’s an eternal debate about the American versus European pace of life. That debate often rests on fantasies: Americans imagine living in Europe with American salaries, and Europeans imagine living in America with European work rhythms.

The American fantasy: pulling in €8k a month working remotely from Paris, living in the Latin Quarter and working from a classic café — the absolute dream.

And yes, it sounds idyllic. But it’s the opposite of the average Parisian life.

The average Parisian earns €2.5k per month and lives in Issy-les-Moulineaux. They spend 50 minutes in a packed metro every morning to get to work. And when you’re paying €1,000 in rent, you’re not blowing the remaining €1,500 on restaurants and €10 coffees: you can’t afford it — and above all, you don’t have the time. When you finish at 7 p.m. and have a 50-minute commute, you can’t go out all the time. We’re far from the idyllic life imagined by Americans.

And it’s the same in the other direction. Europeans imagine working in New York under European conditions. Salaries are much higher, but working conditions are fundamentally different. You don’t become the world’s leading power with 5 weeks of paid vacation a year, 2 extra weeks of compensatory leave, 2-hour lunch breaks, and by saying “that’s not my role” or “I don’t know how, I need training” every time you’re asked to do something new. You don’t become the leading power by stopping companies from firing the most incompetent and forcing them to keep them. Over there, if you do your job poorly, you’re fired and the next person takes your place. It’s not the French-style permanent contract.

And this applies to all “dream places.” Quaint provincial villages seem idyllic. But in winter, when it’s cold and everything is deserted because they rely solely on summer tourism, they’re much less appealing. Add to that the lack of jobs and the near non-existence of fully remote work in France, and it becomes impossible to live in those “paradise” villages.

Paradise on vacation, hell to actually live in.

The Talented Mr. Ripley

I recently watched The Talented Mr. Ripley. (A masterpiece, by the way.) It takes place in Italy in 1959 in the most beautiful locations: a village on the Amalfi Coast, Rome, Florence, and Venice. No one works, everyone is rich, everyone wears gorgeous tailored clothes, and they have nice boats. In short: the dream life.

In Venice, they actually live in the city — which is no longer really possible. The streets are never crowded. In Rome, they go to the restaurant across from their apartment on Piazza Navona and then stroll to Piazza di Spagna. I’m not Roman, but I’m certain locals can’t afford to live there.

It’s dreamy — but it’s all fake.

I went on vacation to Torre del Greco in the suburbs of Naples this winter and it was nothing like The Talented Mr. Ripley. It’s poor, everything is old and in bad shape, no one seems to work, and people just linger in the streets. People were lining up at the post office on the first of the month to collect salaries or benefits in cash.

It was the opposite of the idyllic image we have of Italy.

Italy sells old houses in certain villages for €1 to revive those areas. If they do that, there’s a reason — those “dream” villages aren’t actually that dreamy. There are lots of constraints.

Conclusion

When we compare cities, we tend to take the best of what we know and the best that the other place supposedly offers, then mash them into a final fantasy combo. Life doesn’t work like that.

Our average, ordinary life probably doesn’t make anyone dream — but it should be put into perspective against the fantasy life we imagine somewhere else in the world.

It’s probably better to live where we are than in a so‑called paradise turned into hell for the average person.