Also helps that my transportation is free, which wouldn't be true for you or most people. That's a perk of my occupation and isolated to NYC. If I lived anywhere else or did anything else for a living or worked anywhere else - I most likely wouldn't have this perk. But I've got other savings besides that. (Rent includes building maintenance, apartment maintenance, heat, water, garbage, mail, snow removal, clearing walkways, maintaining the front of the building...for example? I don't have to pay for them to check the boiler and prepare it for winter, or to fix the leaks when it rains.)

The expense is an individual thing. For me it would be more expensive to live elsewhere.