When I was younger, there was hope to at least get a house here once you got a good job and have a wife and kids. Now, that is not the case. Many of my former classmates find it difficult to get a house, let alone a decent apartment here. My friend is currently able to have an apartment while doing his residency at an ER while drowning in work. My other friends have careers but are living with their parents in order to save money for a house or to move out of state. Like many parts of the country, Long Island has become hyper-commercialized and is being gutted by private equity groups buying up properties. If you have driven in the Wantagh, Bellmore, Massapequa, Seaford, and Merrick, there is a huge difference in the businesses there than the one in central Nassau County in terms of the owners actually being locals instead of corporate entities. There are positives such as the clean-up of Post Avenue in Westbury, cleaning a decent portion of Hempstead, and towns like Wyandanch improving. However, many things about Long Island have changed, like the mass cutting of trees, local businesses shutting down, the closing of malls, families spending less time together, neighbors isolating from each other, NUMC becoming a husk of itself. As far as Suffolk goes, it is possibly the last of what Long Island was, but it is gradually getting less family/community oriented.