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I think you meant Stanford and Berkeley for the Bay areas world class universities. Many of their graduates work in the tech industry.
Columbia has a high rank than Cal Tech in college rankings. Stanford rivals Columbia.
Most of my friends and family that went to UC Berkeley call it "Cal", so that's what I call it.
While USNWR currently has Columbia ranked higher than CalTech, historically CalTech (and Stanford) ranked higher than Columbia: U.S. News Rankings Through the Years
The other (more academic and quantitative) rankings also usually rank CalTech higher than Columbia.
I have close relatives from both schools and I think they're both ridiculously great institutions. Subjectively, I've just always perceived CalTech to be at the same academic level as MIT, Princeton and Harvard, while Columbia has been just a notch below.
Well..I'll put it like this: There's a reason the church of scientology is so active here as opposed to NYC. Not saying they're not in NY..but I think they probably found New Yorkers more "intellectually challenging".
In other words..no one is buying that "xenu" and "aliens implanted in your body" BS in New York City. but here?
I see those blue-shirt-wearing morons all over the place..
Would like to point something out to you, the "intellectually challenged" people you point out come from all over the country to LA, mostly like you to try and act.
I was born in NYC and raised on Long Island, and now a long time CA resident.
I have found people out here(especially the natives) to be down to earth and friendly for the most part. Try talking to some native Angelinos, they're much different than the I just got here from Nebraska and want to be a movie star set.
I just pointed out this to a young snot who recently moved out here from NY and started talking about "LA flakes", he didn't like that I said for the most part their transplants from other parts of the country. Because it is the truth. They move to LA and seem to think acting like they're on "Beverly Hills 90210" that they watched as a child is how one should act....LOL.
OP, you talk about pricey. I love NY and in a way it will always be home. But after paying $28 for the pleasure of driving over two bridges in NY back in October, I wouldn't talk about pricey. I asked the toll taker at the GWB after paying $13 for that bridge, does that include getting your laundry done as well...LOL.
Groceries are less here, as are utilities(you pretty much don't need your heat or your A/C most of the year), property taxes much less than metro NY( when I tell people I have relatives on LI paying over $10K a year on modest homes people think I'm embellishing), so cost of living is much lower here. It's the home prices that are out of whack, other things cost less.
Cali has a car culture. You'll need a car and will be judged for what you drive. I do feel more 'free' out west. It probably ties into the car thing. You can drive to the mountains, beach, desert or forests in the same day. Very few toll roads in cal and it makes it easy to get around. In NYC, even if you have a car you feel a bit 'trapped' because you can't really get anywhere with all the bridges and traffic (at least it feels that way). You usually end up going to the same places in nyc.
People? Well, nowadays you get many transplants in both. You'll find all types in both so I don't want to generalize. But twenty years ago, I'd say nyc had more trapping into your socio-economic group. By that I mean if you were Italian, you knew it and you did Italian things. If you were Puerto Rican, you did PR things. If you were Italian and wanted to run a pizzaria, all was good. But if you were Jewish and wanted to run a pizzaria, you were doomed. I'm being a bit figurative here so don't get all in a fit. And like I said things have changed more or less in the last 20 years. But the point is in nyc, you tend to know your place and it is something you are more or less born into. You feel less social pressure in that sense out west.
Are people smarter in nyc? hmmm... well they are certainly more opinionated. You bring up a topic and they will tell you what they think. In cali, people are a bit more live and let live so they let these things pass without getting into it. But I also think that the dumb in california are more likely to think they're smarter because no one really lets them know how dumb they are. In nyc, if you are dumb, people will let you know it. New yorkers won't tolerate stupidity. So the dumb usually know not to open their mouths out here. You rarely get a clueless person going on and on in nyc. Happens often in cali. They're just more tolerant in general out west - for good or bad. There is probably more political corruption out west... possibly due to this lackadaisical attitude. That's one thing I like about nyc. People will raise hell over these things as they should.
It varies. In the beach city where I live, about 30% of the population over the age of 25 have advanced degrees.
Having a degree doesn't make you an intellectual. My mom has two masters' degrees but if I try talking about anything science or history related she will act bored and I have to change the subject.
I lived in San Francisco for a few years in the mid-1990s and then again around the Bay Area in 2002-2003. I would never go back to the Bay Area. It changed a lot in between those periods, and has changed radically since the early 2000s. I found the dominant culture provincial, arrogant, and hypocritical. People touted their liberalism but had some of the worst, must under-funded social programs, e.g. the homeless problem was awful, especially on the second go-around, and I'm not talking about mentally ill people but about whole families living out of their cars beneath an underpass blocks away from multi-million dollar homes. SF proper is under a million residents, so it's really just a mid-tier city with aspirations of an actual big city. Weirdly, I witnessed far more violence in my few years there than I've seen in well more than a decade in NYC. That said, it's geographically beautiful and has great food--a much better place to visit than to live, especially now that the cost of living is comparable to NYC.
On the other hand, I love LA. I can't speak to living there, but I've spent a lot of time visiting. It's true that there's less intellectualism, and that the car culture is a bummer, but the weather is great and there's something perpetually relaxing about being able to live life half outdoors all the time. It's a mammoth city with as much diversity as NYC. The food is great, from high end to taco carts. I think one thing that's different is that LA was historically a place where people entertained at home rather than going out and though there's a lot of nightlife, there's more of a focus on being at home with friends. It's true that the pay scale seems a lot lower than the East Coast. Rents are similar, but you get more space for your money.
All in all, I like living in NYC for its energy / drive, streetlife, public transit, art, etc.
Most of my friends and family that went to UC Berkeley call it "Cal", so that's what I call it.
While USNWR currently has Columbia ranked higher than CalTech, historically CalTech (and Stanford) ranked higher than Columbia: U.S. News Rankings Through the Years
The other (more academic and quantitative) rankings also usually rank CalTech higher than Columbia.
I have close relatives from both schools and I think they're both ridiculously great institutions. Subjectively, I've just always perceived CalTech to be at the same academic level as MIT, Princeton and Harvard, while Columbia has been just a notch below.
Interesting. I think endowment and alumnae giving factor in heavily in USNWR rankings.
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