Based on the Rotten Apple material, Manhattan still runs the gamut of quality of neighborhoods, supporting any sort of lifestyle that a PC might be paying for, but the FAQ specifies you must have a Luxury lifestyle to get a resident pass, and that even High lifestyle means you're a commuter living in one of the other four boroughs.

Which is it? Can a PC with a high lifestyle live on the Upper West Side, or one with a Low Lifestyle live down in Alphabet City or Chinatown, or are we all stuck out in the sticks until we hit the big 100k a month of luxury life?

I've allowed one of my player to rent a place in manhattan island. But only after getting it through it's legal SIN.

One of the coordinators will drop by to give a definitive answer, but the intention of the rule (the FAQ) is that it is prohibitively expensive to live in Manhattan. Almost everyone there lives in Corporate subsidized housing. If you are not a corporate worker, the landlords (corporations) charge an insane fee basically made to discourage all but wealthy individuals from moving in. Afteral, the riff-raff have nothing to offer Manhattan, so why let them in?

That being said, however, you do have areas like Downtown, or maybe the Pit, where a runner could find afordable housing with the right connections. But I am not sure that fits into the SRM context - maybe just something for your personnal game. I would personnaly suggest simply taking SR4 lifestyle costs and applying a multiplier - perhaps x5 or x10.

The only permanent legal residents in Manhattan are corporate employees, including the cultural workers who were brought in to revitalize the mood and energy of the city. There is housing available in Terminal and the Pit, but that's comparable to living in the Barrens. Exiting either of these communities will result in ID checks etc, and there are chokepoints of access to facilitate the ID checks.

Anyone wanting to live a "normal" lifestyle, without Luxury or Barrens flavoring, is going to be part of the Bridge and Tunnel crowd who lives in the boroughs and comes into Manhattan on business.

Excellent. Thanks. Guess my character is moving to Forest Hills or Bayside.

Wait, what? That is not at all in line with the content of Rotten Apple. I do not see anywhere that even comes close to this idea. Take for example this excerpt pertaining to the Lower East Side (Where my bio claims my character has a ratty apartment. )

It’s primarily a lower to poor residential zone with a few middle class locations to the north.
This is the main area where the corporations that aren’t part of
the MDC house their low end personnel.

I could add a lot more such references, but I am not certain how this implies Luxury or Squatter. Maybe someone could elaborate on this.

That was exactly why I was asking. Evidently, the resident screening process is thorough enough that no fake SIN is going to get you a residence in Manhattan unless you're preposterously wealthy, and no one who's got a legitimate SIN and works for a corporation in Manhattan can be a shadowrunner.

I disagree with that. But I'll have to tell the bad news. I had made an apartment that no one wanted because of the AI living in it. Being Spamed with Robot porn all the time and celibrity gossips is not something some one want to live in.

"This is the main area where the corporations that aren’t part of the MDC house their low end personnel." This quote is part what I meant by cultural workers. If you want a legal apartment, then you have to be an employee of one of the corps. If you don't mind having an illegal apartment, then a Fake SIN is going to be the way to go.

So if a corporation has a small office in the city it has an apartment building ? Nice then it may be possible in the context of our campain that includes some legend from the past editions. Thanks.

They don't automatically have apartments... Just that the subsidiaries of the big corps all have housing. The MDC owns most of the island. Some of that are offices, some of that is housing. You see, living in the boroughs sucks. You are a second class citizen, you have poor infrastructure and services, rampant crime, long commute to works, and everyone thinks you smell. As a reward, and to hold them by the balls, as well as make things conveniant for everyone, good little corporate workers get to live in Manhattan. You lose your job, you lose your home, and you become slime. Manhattanites have an atrocious fear of having to live in the boroughs. So, everyone works hard not to piss of their employers. In exchange, they get to be Manhattan citizens, which means nice living conditions, nice toys (such as permits for hard mind-benders, prostitutes, etc) and can feel superior to everyone else.

So, if you're just a small corp, no, you may not have housing in Manhattan. Your workforce may be commuters. Then again, if you're a small corp, it's probably not economically viable for you to have offices in Manhattan anyway.

Thanks.