I think you're better off getting a pickup truck and a travel trailer or fifth wheel. You can leave the trailer in an RV camp and still commute with the truck. I wouldn't pay more than $500/month in lot rent. Or you can get a dually and a camper that sits on the bed of the pickup. There's no trailer so it's easier to boondock. They're much smaller, but you can avoid paying lot rent. Just park it anywhere.
You would be better off and probably a lot more comfortable sharing an apartment or townhouse with an owner or renter in Queens who is looking for income on their extra space. As for the comment about NYC becoming the next Detroit, NYC certainly has some rough sledding ahead, but I certainly wouldn't bet against this town.
Move somewhere like West Palm Beach FL, Ft Lauderdale, or Miami; you can rent a place walking distance to the beach including overhead, and have a nice a car for the same amount of money that you pay to rent in NY....
Take your girlfriend and go enjoy life. Go travel the world. You will spend much less than living in a RV in the middle of nowhere. You will learn who you really are and when you come back, you will be a new person ready for any challenge. Leave the RV space for the desperate old man with kids and crazy bills to pay. You've got so many choices out there, don't pick the worst one.
Now that's the idea. I have a brother-in-law in the RV biz down here in South Florida who can get a good price on a RV. Keep in mind a truck to pull a trailer (what's call a 5th wheel) uses a lot of gas - like maybe 10-11 mpg. Stick with your apartment is my advice if you want to continue to work in NYC.
What kind of truck am I looking at? My dad has a 50k F-250 that is a monster. I don't want to have to go as far as getting an F-250 to pull around my home. I'm hoping the lowest end 4WD drive I can possibly get. I've never bought a truck. How do I quantify what kind of power I need in a truck, or do RV vendors provide the metrics that I need to look for when i want to pair up my house with a truck? Look at this RV. This is the kind of thing I'm thinking about: http://newyork.craigslist.org/brx/rvs/1026563047.html For $4800, that's quite a beautiful setup. Better than my apartment, actually. I just wish he posted shots of the shower and toilet.
My personal view is this: I expect the US to fall into total chaos over the next decade. I don't think the stimulus will work, and I think we're looking at a real depression that's 5x as bad as the great depression. I feel as if the American population has become morally bankrupt, and that I need to take care of my housing needs and have the most flexibility as possible if I want to live and survive in the next few years. There are good Americans, but good Americans have been outnumbered by the sort of Americans who feel entitled. An entitled population will lack all civility. I want an RV that I can use to relocate out of troubled areas and I want to keep firearms that are not allowed in NYC. I also plan to buy a device that'll create water from the humidity in the air, and a few solar cells to keep me up. I'm putting ham radio equipment into the RV, and a few security cameras. If I buy land, I'm going to be armed to the teeth with guns and security. This isn't because I'm a gun-nut crazy, it just has to do with how afraid I am that the whole house of cards is going to come down. If I can finance my escape in under $30,000, I'd be much better off than buying a 50 to 100k house. If I'm wrong, I'll still have enough cash to convert into a regular lifestyle. If I'm right, it could mean the difference between living and dying while my fellow Americans will have lost their collective minds as they revert to the sort of brutish, uncivilized men Hobbes described them to be in Leviathan. I've thought about leaving the country, but it doesn't make sense. No place is immune, and it's best to form alliances with other people who have the sort of libertarian mindset I have and battle the unprepared hordes.
rents are dropping hard and nyc is arguably one of the safest places you could live, because of the density, not in spite of it (short of total pandemonium). dunno what level of luxury you're after, but you could easily share a fairly nice 800-1000 sq foot place in a "desirable" brooklyn neighborhood for $750 each or potentially much lower. (and not have to deal with connecting shit-tubes, ammo lines at walmart, etc) ...not that i don't see where you're coming from. but if shit's going to go down in nyc, chances are you will be at your desk when it does.
I don't believe NYC offers security. NYC is going back to the 70s, and the poor in this city are arguably some of the most militant, violent, entitled people around. The city is becoming more dangerous by day. What makes NYC more dangerous is that the poor are effectively sandwiched into every desirable area via the housing projects. The budget crisis will expand, and the police/fire forces are going to be affected. Numbers do nothing for security when people don't talk to each other in the same apartment building and when people are disarmed. It takes too long to get a gun permit here, and criminals are not deterred by authority here.
i dunno, i've never felt unsafe here. at least within a 100 mile radius, the socioeconomic and thug factors seem fairly ubiquitous... having lived 1.5 hours west of the city for a few years honestly, 95% of new yorkers don't know how to take their aggressiveness beyond shit talking. country kids are far more ready to fight in general, and pretty consistently armed for it. maybe i'm not spending enough time in rough nyc neighborhoods, but i don't see it the density could be a problem, but only under total emergency circumstances imo. watch me eat my words i hope not