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London is difficult to fault. It has just about everything that New York has and adds more history and cleanness to boot. Too many New Yorkers are rude and slobs. On ye flip side I prefer the more interactive dynamic among New Yorkers.
I know this is subjective, but there's something very unique about NYC, not in the way that any other city is unique, but it feels truly like it's own little universe in a way no other city does. The likes of London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Hong Kong are certainly unique, but maybe the fact there are other cities who are somewhat similar (e.g. London and Paris or HK and Shanghai), and the fact they don't seem as truly international as NY has something to do with it. Paris has a certain 'magic' no other city doesn't, but i mean there are other European cities that have a similar feel, whereas I feel NYC just has such a unique and irreplaceable feel to it. Chicago probably comes close, but NYC has a 'centre of the Universe' feel to it, and just seems so unique, like it's its own state of mind, it just feels like the world's no.1 city, the archetype of the modern 'big city.'
I probably like London almost as much for other reasons, but NYC just feels more like a typical 'big city.' I mean there are other cities just as busy, Tokyo, Seoul, Sao Paulo, to name a few, but they are very Japanese/Korean/Brazilian, while NYC is so international, despite also being very American and having it's own strong identity. Maybe it's the movie exposure, but there's something about NYC I feel that I can't quite explain. I've been to many big cities and none have had that same feel to them.
No... London feels like a completely different universe!
Also North Korea is in it's own universe to!
New Yorker's ego. I've been taking sh*t from these people my entire life, about how they're supposedly better than everyone else on the planet. I'm not knocking NY, as I've never been there, but for god's sake New Yorkers, shut up.
It was quite an uniformed view of NYC in my option and definitely not balance. Are you illiterate?
If skyscrapers and run-down neighborhoods are what you think of as what NYC is as a whole, then that person has not traveled around the city much. The variety of the built environment in NYC is incredible and probably the most heterogenous anywhere. The extreme disparities between poor neighborhoods vs wealthy ones, urban vs suburban, and well maintained, vs disheveled is why the city feels like its own universe. London is quite homogenous in comparison.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bamford
Quite the opposite the poster is well aware of the City beyond the Manhattan Skyscrapers and out to areas such as much of Brooklyn Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island.
As for being illiterate, I am clearly not and neither are nblaze20 or pbobcat.
Don't bother with him! He likes to call people illiterate for no operant reason! As for NYC being the center of the universe. Let me go take out my telescope? Since when did the stars of the universe revolved around NYC? The Answer is no!
Last edited by Rozenn; 12-25-2014 at 09:02 AM..
Reason: Rude
Well in terms of rankings, NYC is ranked as the most international city in the world. It's the financial capital of the world and also hosts the UN HQ. NYC has always been an immigrant city and an area for international commerce, so that is part of its fundamental culture in comparison with anytown, Iowa, which has a much different atmosphere and culture.
Every large city has its own culture and microcosm.
Don't bother with him! He likes to call people illiterate for no operant reason! As for NYC being the center of the universe. Let me go take out my telescope? Since when did the stars of the universe revolved around NYC? The Answer is no!
NYC>London on size [although the official city limits and metros measure up the same (8.3 million and 21 million respectively), the built up area of NYC is larger- 16 million as opposed to 13 million]
London> NYC on history (2000 years worth in every style, on every street)
London> NYC on cosmopolitanism, 2000 years of immigration, 700 years of sizeable non-White communities (slightly more minorites from a greater global spread, much more mixing of them too and on every class, with 'mixed race' the fastest growing minority. According to Lonely Planet you'll see more mixed couples in a day in London than a year in NYC)
NYC>London in skyscrapers - no brainer here, London has a soft clay bed and 14 protected 'viewing corridors' across the centre where no tall buildings are allowed. NYC has nearly 10x more tall buildings.
NYC>London big city feel - although London is huge and more visibly crowded on street level, with bigger transport nodes, shopping malls and shopping streets, its still a make-up of subsumed 'villages' and towns with narrower streets on a human scale. NYC has long straight roads, and tall buildings, whilst London's streets are winding, originally drawn out by premedieval paths of cows to their watering holes.
London> NYC on nightlife, though beware the worlds largest entertainment districts (500,000-1 million punters per night are closing down thanks to hook-up apps and astronomically rising rents)
NYC> London on 24hrs - Londons 24hr activities are restricted to just drinking, nightlife, and its supermarkets. NYCs are across the board from corner stores to libraries, and propped up by transport
London> NYC on tourism - London is the world's biggest air hub, international destination and has about 3x more daytrippers than NYC
NYC> London business
London> NYC international business
London = NYC finance (though watch this space)
NYC> London GDP - higher per head, more billionaires
London> NYC public infrastructure, more historic but also more modern, with 7 rail termini, the oldest and largest metro network in the west. Both have the same amount of out-of-town commuters, and from similar distances, but more of London's rely on public transport.
London > NYC in parks, heritage etc - 6 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, 50,000 protected buildings and counting, 90sq miles parkland in the city boundaries
NYC> London population density. Although London and UK has the smallest home size in the West (25% smaller than even the Japanese), one third of the city is parkland, and mid/ lowrise.
London> NYC -beautiful buildings
NYC> London ugly buildings (as in London has more beautiful buildings aswell as more ugly buildings too thanks to postwar planning and the Blitz)
London> NYC (just) -creative industries and art (centre of the global art trade, worlds largest output in terms of creative industries, centre for cutting edge new music and along with Tokyo, street styles etc). NYC may be a collector but London is both collector and propagator - though in the past 10 years the centre has moved to Berlin and NE Asia.
NYC> NYC quality of life - London's too expensive despite high pay and generous holidays, but with small living spaces, and longer average commute times, in substandard housing to the rest of the country
NYC> London expenses, significantly more expensive in London for rent, electronics, local travel, going out
London> NYC fashions - 1 month change of seasons across the board thanks to ex-colonial sweatshop links and proximity to Eastern Europe. Streetfashions are cheap, every teenager dresses like a hipster, and fashions about 1-2 years ahead of the US
NYC> London food. Both cities have amazing restaurants at every income level, and a multitude of food from around the globe (with London winning on this one) but in NYC it's CHEAPER, and arguably more readily available. Also in terms of background native cuisine, America does outdo British.
London>NYC - social justice. Class doesn't correlate with race, immigrants earn more than natives, Blacks, South Asians, East Asians and Middle Easterners more than Whites, much bigger social welfare net has seen crime and poverty drop hugely in 2 decades, despite still being high.
NYC=London media, home of the 'second BBC' (London) and the 'second Hollywood' (both NYC with its multitude of media and news companies and London, with it's proliferation of big budget film studios, newspapers HQ etc)
NYC=London crime. London has very low homicide rates (on a par with the entire country of Sweden, or the entire global region of East Asia despite being a single city), and no no-go areas - but higher crime rates than NYC, in terms of reportage, 6x more.
^In short it's all subjective. Depends on what you feel.
I would say that despite New York being denser, both feel similarly like big cities in different ways - New York's center being high rises of the column form laid out on an orthogonal grid, London's center being stone architecture with greek revival columns and spire-type glass high rises (something I find infinitely more impressive than the concrete jungle). If you go beyond the city centers, New York has as much of a feel of individual villages with their own character. Much of it is run down and ghetto, that is true, but there are also plenty of gems for the casual urban explorer to stumble upon. I don't think the big roads in London are narrower than New York's. In fact many of the numbered streets in Manhattan have much more of a claustrophobic feel, many of these being neglected and in poor shape. However, London has many pedestrianized routes. If you count these walkways as roads, then I guess it's possible to think of it that way.
On an aside, a paradox of comparing the two cities is that despite London being the older city, it feels much more modern than New York. I've seen the renovation work going on in the West End and fascinated how they redevelop their old buildings. They start by fixating the stone facade on a frame, completely demolishing the interior, then building an entirely new steel framework inside it. The finished product is a building that for all intents and purposes looks hundreds of years old on the outside, but the inside is hi-tech modern.
Last edited by Hightower72; 12-29-2014 at 01:11 AM..
Rather apt that the Journalist Michael Wendling himself from Buffalo in New York State wrote a piece for the BBC on this issue only a few days ago.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Wendling
New Yorkers do not have the will to contemplate the goal not reached. They cannot even countenance the possibility that their city is not the centre of - well the world is too small - the universe is more like it.
They are special and they will win. Theirs is a perverse version of the doctrine of American exceptionalism, both writ as big as the Empire State Building, and shrunk from a whole continent down to five boroughs.
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