We went deep with these nine people on their aspirations for their lives in 15 years. Instead, we heard a craving for high-end domesticity so many people told us they wanted to be married with “between one and two kids,” a shocking number said they wanted three or more, and nearly everyone said they wanted to own their homes. We expected a few more to actually want to live in Manhattan. We were surprised by how many people fantasize about a life with a partner and kids in brownstone Brooklyn - we expected more to plan lives as single artists or to build households of friends and throuples. We spoke to dozens of people but narrowed it down to a handful, each reasonably en route to the upper-middle- (and, in two instances, just plain upper-) class life they picture in their heads. We decided to put a price tag on the dream lives of a wide range of New Yorkers, all 30 and under and childless. A one-pound container of strawberries at Eli’s costs $30. Half the households that live here simply cannot afford to, according to another, which says you have to make $100,000 just to reasonably get by - to afford food and transportation to work. New York is the most expensive city in the world, according to one recent report.

Sure, it’s always been ludicrously expensive, and the “what you could get for the same price of this Chelsea studio in Ohio” game is our little way of torturing ourselves.

Trader jacks flea market rules