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  #61  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 3:56 AM
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Originally Posted by mrnyc View Post
the problem if you can call it that is if you live in nyc you are ruined for anywhere else. the only large cities that impress me as interesting are tokyo and sao paulo. even there i soon miss the diversity of nyc and am glad to be back.
Istanbul would be also be a good comparison to nyc with similar amounts of architectural diversity (and of course far older )
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  #62  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 4:01 AM
bossabreezes bossabreezes is offline
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Originally Posted by pj3000 View Post
When they visit a big, urban city which has a ton to offer (i.e., Chicago, et al.), they often come to realize that New York simply takes more than it gives... even if they don't openly offer such feelings.

And they're just not quite as dazzled by the big city lights of NYC anymore, because they can't help but think to themselves, "Fuck, why do I put up with all that shit everyday?".

It's called being New York-sheltered, and then coming to terms with the fact that their worldview has just been upended.
This, 100%.
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  #63  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 4:02 AM
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How do New Yorkers see Paris? Similar core density, a gamut of architectural styles from medieval (and older) to the Hausmann boulevards to modern architecture like Pompidou and La Défense. Similar melting pot from immigration (and ensuing culinary diversity) as well.
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  #64  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 4:03 AM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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Originally Posted by dc_denizen View Post
Istanbul would be also be a good comparison to nyc with similar amounts of architectural diversity (and of course far older )
i have been to istanbul many times and love that city, along with many others, don’t get me wrong lol i am a city lover, but its not comparable to me. i dont really think of other places like that tho. i dont like vs threads i probably shouldnt have even posted here!
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  #65  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 4:12 AM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox View Post
How do New Yorkers see Paris? Similar core density, a gamut of architectural styles from medieval (and older) to the Hausmann boulevards to modern architecture like Pompidou and La Défense. Similar melting pot from immigration (and ensuing culinary diversity) as well.
as a big quebec or buenos aires aka the paris of the americas. although they have more business connections.

i dont see the culinary diversity in paris at all. everything in frenchified. ie., if you are dum enough to order a burger somewhere its not going to be authentic its going to be cooked up in olive oil lol.
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  #66  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 4:14 AM
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My opinion of other urban experiences? Generally, much cleaner than NYC. Other major American cities are generally cleaner because there is just too much damn entropy in NYC (mainly in crowded parts of the city). Even the tony Upper East Side can be filthy, mainly because there are a ton of dog owners, and if even 1% of them allow their dogs to sh*t on the sidewalk without picking it up, it becomes a problem (and I guarantee it's greater than 1%).

Also, the constant development is a major headache as a pedestrian, or as a year-round resident in general. We can all ooh and ahh at the photos we see in the various NYC development threads, but have you ever considered what it's like to deal with all that noise, dust, and closed/re-routed sidewalks everywhere in the city?

So while other cities may not have quite as much development, they are also cleaner, quieter, and less of a headache to deal with. As a kid growing up in Queens, I rarely visited Manhattan outside of Chinatown (where my grandpa lived for a while, in a tenement-style apartment). So going to midtown back then was always a treat, and I loved the skyscrapers.

But as I've gotten older, I've gradually tired of the various annoyances in the city as they've worn down on me.

Anyway, back to topic. IMO, what separates NYC from other cities is the geography. Here we have this medium-sized island, and we've crammed a ton of buildings of various heights and bulk throughout. Whereas other cities with parts situated on a smaller island are separated by narrower waterways that can be connected over with multitudes of bridges, NYC is separated by very wide waterways. Bridges and tunnels need to be huge, and expensive to build and maintain. Lots of development has been going on in other boros, such as Downtown BK and LIC, but "the city" always refers to Manhattan.

Pittsburgh might be in a similar situation geographically, but it's population is a small fraction of Manhattan's. San Francisco is also similar, but their real estate problem is partly geological and partly because they shot themselves in the foot.

For me, the closest companion to Manhattan would be Hong Kong, specifically Victoria Island. The island isn't that small, but it is extremely constrained geographically by a large mountain in the back. Even Kowloon is fairly constrained.
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  #67  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 4:20 AM
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Paris is on par with NYC in terms of urbanity and density. No question. Very approximate urban experience.
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  #68  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 4:23 AM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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Originally Posted by dchan View Post
My opinion of other urban experiences? Generally, much cleaner than NYC. Other major American cities are generally cleaner because there is just too much damn entropy in NYC (mainly in crowded parts of the city).
yep!

When you leave New York, you are astonished at how clean the rest of the world is. Clean is not enough.

— Fran Lebowitz
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  #69  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 6:07 AM
tom hanks tom hanks is offline
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Which is why we invested "Vigilance Societies". And we need to bring them back.
Do it then. Be a vigilante. I would love to see it.
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  #70  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 6:09 AM
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Originally Posted by proghousehead View Post
Paris is on par with NYC in terms of urbanity and density. No question. Very approximate urban experience.
NYC can't compare to Paris. No American city can. Europeans don’t obsess about this stuff because they just live it whereas Americans fetishize it to justify our inability of creating livable urban experiences. We still erroneously think big skylines define urbanity. Parisians have always known it’s not about looking up, but at street level and maintaining human scale, knowing big doesn’t mean more urban. Something this country tragically keeps failing to understand. Also, we confuse money and power for urbanity and that’s a different discussion.

Last edited by ocman; Aug 28, 2021 at 6:26 AM.
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  #71  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 6:19 AM
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Originally Posted by mrnyc View Post
the problem if you can call it that is if you live in nyc you are ruined for anywhere else. the only large cities that impress me as interesting are tokyo and sao paulo. even there i soon miss the diversity of nyc and am glad to be back.
If I moved to NYC I would miss never having to worry about air conditioning or heating and having open windows 12 months of the year. No heat waves, no snow and frigid winters. To me that's worth a lot of diversity (as if SF didn't have plenty).
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  #72  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 6:21 AM
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Originally Posted by tom hanks View Post
Do it then. Be a vigilante. I would love to see it.
Wanna start by hanging the Yorks?
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  #73  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 6:23 AM
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Originally Posted by proghousehead View Post
Paris is on par with NYC in terms of urbanity and density. No question. Very approximate urban experience.
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  #74  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 6:38 AM
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Last edited by SFBruin; Aug 29, 2021 at 12:30 AM.
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  #75  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 8:05 AM
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San Francisco does many things well, but easy access to nature is not one of them, imo.
Having grown up in the east--a Washington DC suburb--I find that access to nature is what San Francisco does spectacularly well.

In the DC to Boston megaplex you usually have to drive many miles to get to anything resembling real nature (not just an urban park). I grew up about 5 miles outside the District of Columbia in a small tract of houses carved out of a forest in 1949 but these days you probably have to go another 40, 50 miles to get beyond the suburban sprawl (out to Frederick or beyond).

In SF, you just have to cross a bridge. So much of Marin County has been either turned into park land (federal and state) or the development rights have been sold to environmental organizations that the county is pretty much safe from any form of development. And almost nowhere else in the US do you find what amounts to an inner ring suburban county that's nearly undevelopable.

It's another factor that's terrible for home prices but wonderful for those who can afford to live here.
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  #76  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 12:55 PM
jtown,man jtown,man is offline
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Originally Posted by Razor View Post
It goes to show you that it's all relative I suppose.

On another note but keeping to my "it's all relative point", I have lived in Ottawa for the past 22 years, and it's a pretty small city, but prior to moving here from an even smaller city I have visited Toronto a number of times, and I remember feeling overwhelmed. I still consider Toronto large, but I guess moving to Ottawa primed me up a but more for Toronto, as it doesn't feel quite as overwhelming as it once did. NYC felt beastly when we visited a decade ago. New Yorkers visiting Tokyo must feel at home!
It is all relative.

I lived in Norfolk VA and backroaded to West Virginia. So many small towns. Heading back to Norfolk I felt like I was entering a huge city (I could only imagine what small-town folks would think).

About two weeks later I went to DC. Coming back to Norfolk I felt like I was in the quietest place on Earth.
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  #77  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 1:00 PM
3rd&Brown 3rd&Brown is online now
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Originally Posted by CaliNative View Post
Having talked to a lot of New Yorkers, they tend to appreciate San Francisco. L.A., some like it sort of, but they often make fun of it like Woody Allen. But quite a few live in L.A., especially those in entertainment. Streisand has lived in Malibu for 50 years. Miami, they must like, since so many retire there. Boston, I don't think they like, because of the sports thing, but they do respect the universities, especially Harvard, and the New England vibe. They do like the Maine coast, but who doesn't? They also like Vermont. Chicago is seen as a New York wannabe, or rival, and most of the midwest is seen as flyover country on the way to the west coast. I don't think they think much about Philly. Buffalo or upstate either, except for the Hudson Valley and Adirondacks where they often vacation. Washington DC they respect, because of all the political power. The south, apart from Miami and maybe New Orleans, never think about it. That old cartoon in the New Yorker about how New Yorkers see the country is pretty much true. New York takes up maybe 50% of the map, and everywhere else is tiny.
Are you a New Yorker?

If not. Why are you answering?
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  #78  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 1:11 PM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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Originally Posted by ocman View Post
NYC can't compare to Paris. No American city can. Europeans don’t obsessr about this stuff because they just live it whereas Americans fetishize it to justify our inability of creating livable urban experiences. We still erroneously think big skylines define urbanity. Parisians have always known it’s not about looking up, but at street level and maintaining human scale, knowing big doesn’t mean more urban. Something this country tragically keeps failing to understand. Also, we confuse money and power for urbanity and that’s a different discussion.
we do understand. thats what we have dc for. and in fact a frenchman laid it all out for us.
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  #79  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 1:11 PM
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Originally Posted by proghousehead View Post
Paris is on par with NYC in terms of urbanity and density. No question. Very approximate urban experience.
I agree with this! I would add architectural grandeur to it too. Other similarly urban and dense megacities mentioned (Tokyo, Seoul, etc) don't have that extra critical element.
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  #80  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2021, 1:21 PM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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Originally Posted by streetscaper View Post
I agree with this! I would add architectural grandeur to it too. Other similarly urban and dense megacities mentioned (Tokyo, Seoul, etc) don't have that extra critical element.
yeah, *inserts dad joke* they don’t make historic grandeur like they used to!
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