Street cart vendors at the intersection of Broadway, Fifth Avenue...

Street cart vendors at the intersection of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and East 23rd Street in Manhattan on Sept. 12. Culturally, Broadway, Lincoln Center and our museums are incomparable, a reader writes. Credit: AP/Jason DeCrow

The article on why people are leaving New York shows the “dark side” of living in New York and Long Island “New Yorkers on the move,” News, Sept. 22].

As a proud New Yorker and Long Islander, I want to share why I love this place.

We have great public schools; our students attend the best colleges, and a large percentage of Regeneron Science Talent Search semifinalists come from our area.

We have better laws to protect our citizens.

School shootings and mass murders tend to occur in states with lax gun-control laws.

While climate change has ravaged our country, tornados, wildfires, tropical storms and hurricanes tend to be more frequent in western and southern states. Our winters have become milder, and we rarely experience triple-digit temperatures in the summer.

If I ever needed major surgery, I would only have it in the metro area, which has many of the best doctors and hospitals in the country.

Culturally, Broadway, Lincoln Center and our museums are incomparable.

Our beaches, parks, colleges and social service programs are first-rate.

Yes, such a high quality of life costs more. Those of us who value these things will pay to live here. Those who don’t will move elsewhere.

— Lou Sabatini, Blue Point

A reader questioned whether New York Republicans are moving to Florida because of something Gov. Kathy Hochul said two years ago [“Tell people to leave and they just may go,” Letters, Sept. 24].

Selling a house is an ordeal. Looking for and buying a house 1,000 miles away is an even bigger ordeal. Packing up and moving your stuff — not to mention scaling it down — is an expensive and frustrating ordeal.

While there are any number of reasons Northerners move south, no one in New York — or any state — is putting themselves through that ordeal because their governor said something mean two years ago.

— Robert Emproto, Huntington

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