This is one of the most insightful things I've ever read about cities in general, and NYC in particular. Bravo.
Another thought, somewhat related: It's always bugged me when someone paints city dwellers as somehow alien or "other," contrasted with the folks living in the heartland, i.e., "real" Americans. It especially grates when I hear it from someone who has never actually lived in a big city.
I grew up in a tiny rural Ohio town, about as "real America" as it gets, then lived in a midsize metro area in Pennsylvania for some years before moving to Manhattan for six years. (And then back to Pa., before moving to our current home, Portland, Oregon.) I quickly learned that NYC was—and still is, I'm sure—full of people like me, people who grew up in much smaller and more remote places, then moved to NYC and became a city dweller.
New York City, and other big cities, are "real America" every bit as much as any other place. It's hard to take seriously anyone who can't, or won't, see that.
As only an infrequent visitor, I find NYC to be overwhelming and it makes me anxious. Exciting for a day, maybe two but any longer and I'm ready to go. I guess I am just more of a small city guy (meaning <~100k people, the kinds of places I've lived). However, one of the really interesting things about NYC from people I know who live there is that it is a place made up of neighborhoods, some very tight knight and I think that if you live there, you really get to understand that and operate that way. Those neighborhoods would in many ways meet the small city criteria and feel, but that's something you would never get as a visitor.
"It’s just, perhaps, that so much of what we think of as being due to age or stage of life is down to our surroundings, and whether they work with or against our desire to get out and do things. It’s hard to tell the difference between tiredness and boredom. Between quieting down and moving to the suburbs, or the suburbs quieting you down."
So well said! A mental image that I will never forget is visiting my (at the time American ex-pat) cousin in Hong Kong and seeing very elderly local women carrying heavy grocery bags up and down the subway steps or in and out of buses, no doubtedly heading to walk-up apartments (as many are in Hong Kong). They stayed physically active, whether consciously or not, because their life in a busy city necessitates it. Quite the opposite of life in an American suburb, where people in their 30s and 40s aren't nearly as fit as Hong Kong women in their 80s!
Six years ago, I moved to NYC when I was 23, right out of a small town where I'd been homeschooled. I'm by nature a little more cosmopolitan than the folks in my small town, while I'm also politically and temperamentally conservative, so I think my initial impressions were actually quite balanced: I loved the energy of the place, the constant diversity, the endlessness. I loved the jay-walking. It seemed so rudely American. I expected a world that's regulated to death. But having been to England since, I am more aware than ever how American and chaotic NYC is.
That said, I was also astonished by the constancy of the threats on the subway. I'd always wondered, growing up, why city-dwellers walked right by a man lying injured in the street. I figured out why within weeks of moving here--you just never know who might be a threat. You don't stay to find out. You have to be constantly vigilant.
I've been threatened on a nearly-empty bus by a man who yelled racial threats at me (he'd been harassing the black female bus driver before me, so an intersectional abuser I guess, haha). I've often seen men stalk up and down subway cars threatening elderly women, yelling racial abuse at racial groups they don't like. A man screaming at women just to get a rise. My roommate was chased out of our subway station by a man at night. She saw the recent spree stabber multiple times on her commute. It's hard for me to trust the city when "random punchers" are released on bail.
I care about statistics. I know that bad things are rare. But boy, I don't feel comforted when I see drug-dealing at my church subway stop practically every week or similar dramatic anti-social behavior. All of these things are aberrations rather than daily occurrences for me, but I do notice I've grown a lot more numb to it. Don't love that. You get variety in a city--and that includes variety of risk.
I guess what I'm saying is, I wish I could afford a car. I know these problems are really difficult to solve in a big city (is it possible?), and I love public transit in other ways. Love the walking culture. Love the mango ladies. Gets my libertarian side going when government arbitrarily arrests them for not having permits.
I like cities but really dislike Manhattan. It isn’t the form of the city, but the people. I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but Chicago seems to me filled with Chicagoans, Nanjing with Nanjingers, Madrid with Madrilenos. But Manhattan feels different to me. The best way that I can describe it was that it didn’t feel like a place that people lived, that it isn’t a place where the residents felt some ownership of and contribution to, but rather a place that they consumed. I assume that the bridge and tunnel parts of NYC aren’t like that and are the real NYC, while Manhattan is just for the tourists.
This is one of the most insightful things I've ever read about cities in general, and NYC in particular. Bravo.
Another thought, somewhat related: It's always bugged me when someone paints city dwellers as somehow alien or "other," contrasted with the folks living in the heartland, i.e., "real" Americans. It especially grates when I hear it from someone who has never actually lived in a big city.
I grew up in a tiny rural Ohio town, about as "real America" as it gets, then lived in a midsize metro area in Pennsylvania for some years before moving to Manhattan for six years. (And then back to Pa., before moving to our current home, Portland, Oregon.) I quickly learned that NYC was—and still is, I'm sure—full of people like me, people who grew up in much smaller and more remote places, then moved to NYC and became a city dweller.
New York City, and other big cities, are "real America" every bit as much as any other place. It's hard to take seriously anyone who can't, or won't, see that.
Thank you!
As only an infrequent visitor, I find NYC to be overwhelming and it makes me anxious. Exciting for a day, maybe two but any longer and I'm ready to go. I guess I am just more of a small city guy (meaning <~100k people, the kinds of places I've lived). However, one of the really interesting things about NYC from people I know who live there is that it is a place made up of neighborhoods, some very tight knight and I think that if you live there, you really get to understand that and operate that way. Those neighborhoods would in many ways meet the small city criteria and feel, but that's something you would never get as a visitor.
I totally agree with this. Not everything has to be a part of a big narrative. Have some pizza! See a show!
"It’s just, perhaps, that so much of what we think of as being due to age or stage of life is down to our surroundings, and whether they work with or against our desire to get out and do things. It’s hard to tell the difference between tiredness and boredom. Between quieting down and moving to the suburbs, or the suburbs quieting you down."
So well said! A mental image that I will never forget is visiting my (at the time American ex-pat) cousin in Hong Kong and seeing very elderly local women carrying heavy grocery bags up and down the subway steps or in and out of buses, no doubtedly heading to walk-up apartments (as many are in Hong Kong). They stayed physically active, whether consciously or not, because their life in a busy city necessitates it. Quite the opposite of life in an American suburb, where people in their 30s and 40s aren't nearly as fit as Hong Kong women in their 80s!
Six years ago, I moved to NYC when I was 23, right out of a small town where I'd been homeschooled. I'm by nature a little more cosmopolitan than the folks in my small town, while I'm also politically and temperamentally conservative, so I think my initial impressions were actually quite balanced: I loved the energy of the place, the constant diversity, the endlessness. I loved the jay-walking. It seemed so rudely American. I expected a world that's regulated to death. But having been to England since, I am more aware than ever how American and chaotic NYC is.
That said, I was also astonished by the constancy of the threats on the subway. I'd always wondered, growing up, why city-dwellers walked right by a man lying injured in the street. I figured out why within weeks of moving here--you just never know who might be a threat. You don't stay to find out. You have to be constantly vigilant.
I've been threatened on a nearly-empty bus by a man who yelled racial threats at me (he'd been harassing the black female bus driver before me, so an intersectional abuser I guess, haha). I've often seen men stalk up and down subway cars threatening elderly women, yelling racial abuse at racial groups they don't like. A man screaming at women just to get a rise. My roommate was chased out of our subway station by a man at night. She saw the recent spree stabber multiple times on her commute. It's hard for me to trust the city when "random punchers" are released on bail.
I care about statistics. I know that bad things are rare. But boy, I don't feel comforted when I see drug-dealing at my church subway stop practically every week or similar dramatic anti-social behavior. All of these things are aberrations rather than daily occurrences for me, but I do notice I've grown a lot more numb to it. Don't love that. You get variety in a city--and that includes variety of risk.
I guess what I'm saying is, I wish I could afford a car. I know these problems are really difficult to solve in a big city (is it possible?), and I love public transit in other ways. Love the walking culture. Love the mango ladies. Gets my libertarian side going when government arbitrarily arrests them for not having permits.
I like cities but really dislike Manhattan. It isn’t the form of the city, but the people. I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but Chicago seems to me filled with Chicagoans, Nanjing with Nanjingers, Madrid with Madrilenos. But Manhattan feels different to me. The best way that I can describe it was that it didn’t feel like a place that people lived, that it isn’t a place where the residents felt some ownership of and contribution to, but rather a place that they consumed. I assume that the bridge and tunnel parts of NYC aren’t like that and are the real NYC, while Manhattan is just for the tourists.