I live in New York, and am mediocre at skating, not because the spots here suck, but because I do. I'm from the northwest originally though, have only lived here a few years, so I'm not sure I qualify as 'being from the east coast'. There are some sick skaters here, and some sick spots. Some are shitty, and rugged. I find myself skating them because often there are too many people/other skaters in the way at some of the nicer spots. COTG, I think maybe the party scene/thousands of hot girls walking around have more to do with any perceived suckage/laziness of skaters out here than the spots do.