They called it the worst place to live in America, and still the streets swarm with dreamers. I came to Night City for the chrome and the chaos, but I stayed for the real estate. You heard me right: in this rain-slicked dystopia where corporate towers pierce the smog and gutter punks fight over scraps, a merc like me can scoop up five apartments before the blood on her jacket even dries. From the cold glass of Corpo Plaza to the neon shrines of Japantown, I’ve staked my claim on more square footage than I’ll ever need. Every morning I wake up somewhere new, brew synthetic coffee over a burner that hums like a dying bee, and watch the holographic ads flicker through the blinds.

a-city-of-empty-keys-my-lonely-apartments-in-night-city-image-0

And yet, each key feels heavier than the last.

Not long ago, V only called one place home: a megabuilding closet wedged between thousands of other souls, all breathing the same recycled air. That shoebox had character. I’d return after a gig with bullets still lodged in my shoulder, fall onto the mattress, and just feel the city pulsing through the walls. It was part of me. When the fixers finally started selling apartments back in ’22, I thought I’d been handed the keys to a revolution. The Glen, with its retro revival bars. Japantown, where lanterns drip rain onto the sidewalk like liquid fire. Corpo Plaza, slick and sterile enough to make you miss the dirt.

But something broke along the way.

The rooms got bigger. The animations got fancier. I’d walk in, play a guitar riff, stroke my cat, stare at the wall of weapons I never use—and then leave. Once you’ve seen V pour a whiskey glass or tune the radio, there’s nothing left. No one ever knocks on my door. No one ever calls me home.

In 2026, the economy of Night City has changed. The 2.0 overhaul made edge-runners rich overnight, showering us in eddies for every side job and NCPD scanner. I bought all five apartments and still had enough leftover to slot a Sandevistan that turns me into a ghost. The world wants me to be a consumer now, not a survivor. I can own the city, but I can never belong to it. And that’s where the poetry curdles into something sour.

Cyberpunk is meant to cut. To bleed. The billboards above me promise eternal youth while homeless children sleep in dumpsters. Giant holograms of swimsuit models wink at a populace that can’t afford a real meal. Yet my biggest financial concern is whether I should upgrade my mantis blades before breakfast. There’s no rent due on my five beautiful cages. No landlord raising the price because a corpo scion bought the building. No questline where I stand with the dispossessed against a system that gnaws at their bones.

I would have loved that—needed that: a story where housing itself becomes the battlefield, where I have to take up arms not for eddies, but to keep a family from being thrown onto the street. Even a monthly rent notice would have anchored me to something real, a constant reminder that in this world, everything eventually breaks. Starfield let me mortgage a dream; Cyberpunk 2077 just handed me a deed to silence.

So I drift. Tonight I’m in Corpo Plaza, staring at a penthouse so quiet I can hear my own cyberware whir. Tomorrow I’ll be in Japantown, the smell of fried synth-meat drifting through an open window I’ll never know the neighbor of. I am a real estate mogul in a world on fire—and I have never felt more homeless.

Phantom Liberty offered a glimpse of something grittier: a ruined safehouse after a presidential rescue, walls scarred with bullet holes and memories. I cared about that place for a single evening. Then the game forgot it existed, and so did I.

The cruelest joke? I still can’t afford a closet in my own reality. Yet here, in this neon purgatory, a street rat can collect skyline views like trophies. That’s not a dystopia. That’s a fantasy dressed in black leather and pretending to have teeth. V deserves a home that matters. I deserve a city that pushes back when I try to own too much of it. Until then, my keys jingle like ghost coins. I open another door. Turn on another lamp. And wait for something that never comes.

Perhaps the worst place to live in America isn’t the one that breaks you. It’s the one that lets you have everything and still leaves you empty.