I had a really interesting conversation with a friend that just came back from NYC. He was telling me how cool the NYC was, and how he feels that the Big Apple have change for good in the last years.
This remind of an article that i got somewhere about the differences between the NYC urban model and the LA urban model. I gotta say that after that article i would choose NYC over LA to live because of some interesting facts.
The NYC is more like a big village, people in the NYC live togheter, many of them live in the city. The NYC people usually use the metro system and walk instead of use a car. They share a lot of values that help to make an idea of what is being a New Yorker, there are people of all the world living there, but the comunities seems to get along well must of the time.
The LA model is different, must of the people live outside the city in their racially different suburbs and must of them use a car . Its hard to find people that claim that they are Angelines, but people that claim that live in the Valley or in the Hills, and the comunities are segregated... latinos in East LA, rich people in Beverly Hills, Bel Air, black people in Compton and South Central and sometimes these comunities crash agaisnt each other.
Of course i cannot say how much of that is true... but i have to say that when i think of both cities as a model for my own city, i would pick NYC over LA. I like the idea of live and work in the city and walk or comute instead of use cars, i like the idea of share my space with other people using public facilities instead of pay for keeping a huge garden or a country club membership. I like the idea of a city that works like a village, with the adventages of a modern city but with the spirit of a little town.
I would like know what the people that lives in LA or NYC thinks... If you think of other city that is good enough to
imitate (you own city perhaps) tell us about it too.
