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I've lived in both. They are both urban large cities.
I think New York City has a lot more variation and significantly more international, with significantly varied communities and neighborhoods and such.
If you are talking about just sidewalks, concretes and buildings (aesthetics), than both are quite urban. If you are speaking of some 'urban vibe' which includes a cosmopolitan international feel, than NYC would have be the winner of that contest.
NYC is not overwhelming... u want overwhelming? go to mexico city, paris in the summer, mumbai.
NYC is a gentrified starbucks type town!!!
people always love to make NYC sound as THE CITY, in reality there are places far crazier, faster, more crowded, more overwhelming than NYC!
I lived in New York City in the late 1990s. It wasn't a gentrified starbucks town than, although I've heard that reference to it now.
My guess though, is that it would take very little to find all the amazingly cool incredible stuff that made NYC an amazing place to live in....
Your other references...I have been to Paris and Mumbai, and I haven't been to Mexico City (I did however live in Sao Paulo - which was fantastic, by the way).
But, regardless, NYC is still NYC. You really can't say some other city makes it less 'edgy, cool, important, fascinating, interesting'. NYC will always impress any visitor who gets to know it (much like any city would really).
Hong Kong really is similar to Seoul. There are important commercial areas on both sides of the harbour. Like there are important areas on both side of the river in Seoul. People frequently cross the harbour or riverin HK and Seoul.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OZpharmer
What about Berlin, London, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Beijing?
To me, New York feels much more urban than Seoul. In a way this is surprising, because Seoul has a larger population and a greater population density. But Seoul seems more evenly spread out across its city (lots of high rises but few skyscrapers), while so much of New York feels like its concentrated in Manhattan.
So I'll modify my statement. Manhattan feels more urban than Seoul. But pretty much any random Seoul neighborhood feels more urban than most neighborhoods in the outer boroughs.
Seoul is very weird, you don't feel you are in a titan city with 22 million inhabitants. An impressive majority is just made with these korean-type houses with cables everywhere and is exceptionally ugly, clean but nothing more (Japan is superior for this) . IMO New York feels more urban. As a 'new' city, Seoul benefit from a better urban planning/organization than older cities so you aren't submerged by people when you walk around.
Seoul is very weird, you don't feel you are in a titan city with 22 million inhabitants. An impressive majority is just made with these korean-type houses with cables everywhere and is exceptionally ugly, clean but nothing more (Japan is superior for this) . IMO New York feels more urban. As a 'new' city, Seoul benefit from a better urban planning/organization than older cities so you aren't submerged by people when you walk around.
IMO New York's grid is much better planned than Seoul from an urban city perspective. While Seoul is a "newer" city, most of its planning was done during terrible urban planning era (wide non-walkable streets that cut-off neighborhoods and make "islands" of walkability, ugly architecture, commieblocks-in-the-park developments in residential neighborhoods, plus legacy historic winding streets). As far as architecture, both historic and modern, NYC over Seoul anyday.
Also, at street level, NYC definitely feels busier/denser than Seoul, at least in the core and the denser parts of outer boroughs. Even though Seoul is denser on paper, it is spread out with multiple nodes, "islands" of activity. As a result, for example, Gangnam feels less busy (as far as pedestrian activity) than places like Flatbush in Brooklyn. As other posters mentioned, Seoul doesn't feel that much bigger to be honest, as compared to Tokyo for example, which does feel bigger than NYC.
As far as Seoul's advantages, obviously public transportation/infrastructure is much more modern and timely. Also, the multi-nodal nature of the city could be an advantage to some. It makes Seoul appear to have much less traffic.
Most people don't realize that outside of Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn, most of NYC is medium or even low density residential.
That's not really low density though--those rowhouses pack people in as they're generally three to five floors (usually with a basement apartment) and connected and on blocks that are generally pretty small and have fairly narrow streets. The collective density those rowhouses end up hitting is definitely not low.
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