Living OOT for a few decades now, every once in a while I think “it would be nice if it were easy to…” The pluses of living in-town, from our point of view, are mostly about convenience and choice: we imagine there’s 24-hour drive-through where you can get your tefillin checked, and we know there are a lot of restaurants, even if most of them are terrible; our town has fewer than 10, though none are terrible. Truth is, none here are as fancy as any of the 20 fanciest restaurants, though 2 have food as good as or better than anything available in NYC.
We are usually entertained by people from NYC who (often) come here on business. They can’t believe that we can survive without many of the conveniences they have. On the other hand, we don’t understand how they can survive the rampant dishonesty (we saw the article on tow trucks in Boro Park and said “of course – that’s what we expect in NYC”) the extravagant displays of observance and wealth, and what seems to us people frequently confusing the two.
One simple example: in NYC, in many neighborhoods, people are afraid their neighbors will think they’re poor and their kids will never get a shidduch if they don’t drive a Lexus, or at least an Acura. Here, genuinely wealthy people often drive Toyotas and Hondas.
Another simple example: when the chasuna takana came out, we had to laugh at all the people saying you just can’t have a nice event within those guidelines: every chasuna OOT is automatically within those guidelines! Why would we spend immense amounts of money we don’t have to throw a super-elaborate party that lasts a couple of hours?
It amazes us when people from in-town come to our supermarket and have no idea which hechshers are good, because they never have to look for a hechsher where thy shop. And they in general know exactly nothing about anything or any place outside their dalet amos, although, being New Yorkers, they are usually very impressed with how much they know, on every subject. OOT people generally manage to know about many different OOT communities, and also to know a fair amount about NYC. It’s not that we’re smarter, just that we’re not so provincial. Here, when I say “there’s no-one so provincial as a New Yorker,” everyone just nods their heads in agreement, especially the former New Yorkers.
Our daughter is looking forward to setting up her own bais ne’eman soon, and has told me that she doesn’t think she wants to raise children in our city because “it’s become too much like New York.” She has lived in NYC for the past 3 years!