Does NYC not feel American? (New York, York: home, neighborhoods, living)
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I've seen quite a few people claim that NYC is nothing like mainstream America (by American posters who don't like the US but like NYC)
While NYC is very urban and has high public tran
It is the largest city in the US, home to 6 major sports teams, is the birthplace of the current president, is the birthplace of the most popular genre of music in the US and the world (hip hop), has many American cultural norms present, and more.
So I am quite skeptical of the idea that NYC is somehow not American.
I've seen quite a few people claim that NYC is nothing like mainstream America (by American posters who don't like the US but like NYC)
While NYC is very urban and has high public tran
It is the largest city in the US, home to 6 major sports teams, is the birthplace of the current president, is the birthplace of the most popular genre of music in the US and the world (hip hop), has many American cultural norms present, and more.
So I am quite skeptical of the idea that NYC is somehow not American.
Much of America no longer feels American...so there's that.
Compared to what though? It's weirdest day-to-day difference from the rest of the US is that it's far less car-oriented than the rest of the US by a long shot. There are neighborhoods that feel a bit like other places due to a heavy concentration of immigrants from a specific part of the world, but that's also true in large ethnic neighborhoods in the rest of the US or elsewhere.
NYC was never indicative of traditional American culture. How could it? It's the landing spot for the world...good and bad.
The vast majority of this country is still white, protestant and middle class. Very few of them in NYC.
As an Irish catholic, I never realized this until my 20s when I started to travel the rest of the country for work.
In 100 years you won't recognize this America I speak of. Every year, we move farther away from our white European founders. And the "white" countries we came from won't even look the same in 100 years.
Compared to what though? It's weirdest day-to-day difference from the rest of the US is that it's far less car-oriented than the rest of the US by a long shot. There are neighborhoods that feel a bit like other places due to a heavy concentration of immigrants from a specific part of the world, but that's also true in large ethnic neighborhoods in the rest of the US or elsewhere.
Compared to the rest of the US I guess.
And there are other cities with high rate of public transit use. And within NYC, there are neighborhoods that are built for car owners. Pretty much all of the neighborhoods built up after 1945 cater to car owners.
But I agree overall, diversity/immigrants are not unique to NYC.
NYC was never indicative of traditional American culture. How could it? It's the landing spot for the world...good and bad.
The vast majority of this country is still white, protestant and middle class. Very few of them in NYC.
As an Irish catholic, I never realized this until my 20s when I started to travel the rest of the country for work.
In 100 years you won't recognize this America I speak of. Every year, we move farther away from our white European founders. And the "white" countries we came from won't even look the same in 100 years.
Younger people are so irreligious that I don't even think that matters much anymore.
And white people don't really dominate many of the country's big cities. Not Houston, not Dallas, not LA, not Chicago, not Philly, etc.
And there are other cities with high rate of public transit use. And within NYC, there are neighborhoods that are built for car owners. Pretty much all of the neighborhoods built up after 1945 cater to car owners.
But I agree overall, diversity/immigrants are not unique to NYC.
There is nowhere in the US that comes particularly close to NYC when it comes to mass transit usage. There are some post-1945 neighborhoods that cater to car owners, but NYC official boundaries are quite large and so many post-1945 neighborhoods are still more conducive to living without a car than post-1945 neighborhoods elsewhere in the US. There's also something to be said by the sheer expanse and variety that's easily reachable via mass transit which makes it much less constraining to live without a car than any other US city.
NYC was never indicative of traditional American culture. How could it? It's the landing spot for the world...good and bad.
The vast majority of this country is still white, protestant and middle class. Very few of them in NYC.
As an Irish catholic, I never realized this until my 20s when I started to travel the rest of the country for work.
In 100 years you won't recognize this America I speak of. Every year, we move farther away from our white European founders. And the "white" countries we came from won't even look the same in 100 years.
It's true. When the first mass Irish immigrations happened from elsewhere than Protestant Ulster, the Irish were depicted as a fifth column of ignorant and perverse papists who were going to destroy the great Anglo-Saxon Protestant traditions that our country was built upon. It was even worse in that some of the earlier waves came without speaking English. There were calls to limit or ban that immigration, but they were unsuccessful. What was successful were gangs of Anglo-Saxon true Americans beating the **** out of the Irish Catholics--successful in bloodying them, but ultimately Irish Catholics formed gangs of their own which became quite prominent and in some ways legitimized. The Irish immigrants from Protestant Ulster who were the main Irish who came during the colonial and early republic days didn't want to be associated with the subhuman filth and squalor of the Irish Catholics and went from calling themselves Irish to Scots-Irish and then to being among the largest groups to firmly identify as just American ancestry even more so than groups that were here as long or longer some of which seemed to have a much greater fondness for remembering and stating their ancestry. So, did the flood of Irish Catholics destroy America? Who knows!
I always liked NYC for being Un American in the typical way. That all changed after 9/11 when the folks in fly over country took a liking to us folks and adopted NYC as a symbolism of national pride.
The Red Lobsters and Olive Garden followed suit so the folks can feel in similar surroundings as they do at home.
Now I'd say most NY'ers hardly recognize it at all anymore.
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