New York City is for sellouts

Yeah, I'm being a devil's advocate, but for a point. ;-)

As you say, you speak from your own experience -- speaking from mine, the humanity in a place that's more spread out than compacted is no less present and no less affected. And stepping away from where I live to even quieter areas...I've found it's there. Not in the cliched Ray Bradbury-as-misinterpreted-by-morons fever dream of some sort of rural purity of spirit, but just in casual "Hey, what's up? How are ya?" attitudes.

Humanity is where you find it, and I find it everywhere, compacted or diffused. Thank goodness for that too.

1991 to thread!

Look, I never denied I was a dated fuckhead. ( ;-) )

Moving anywhere is "selling out." Do people really care about this stuff?

Heh, I pointed this out earlier. But apparently, people still do...(although in Washington and Oregon states, there might be some valid arguments as to why there's a tradition of hating Cali immigrants.. i'm guilty as charged, your honor)

(and if you don't find some of the photos in this thread idyllic and peaceful, you're not looking hard enough)

So, like, um, all the beach pictures and woodsy pictures already posted don't count?

(xpost)

http://bitchcakes.topcities.com/summer/umbrella.jpg

Best post of the thread so far.

I think Lawrence is suggesting they wouldn't count if a good chunk of the eight million are there with him searching for peace and quiet.

To be fair, I've found perfect serenity more than once in the middle of Manhattan, and not in Central Park even. But I think it's more a matter of state of mind, really. Celebrating the rush of everything is similar -- it's not always NEEDED, but it's certainly nice to have around. But at the same time, I've found similar rushes in plenty of other cities (London, SF, Seattle, Melbourne, LA itself), which again takes us back to the whole 'why this city in particular' conundrum we started with...

Good luck, Aaron! Thanks Nordic! Hope your SF living situation works out as well. My fingers are crossed for you.

Another thing I love about NY is how green it is. Unless you've been or visited you don't realize how many parks and trees there are. Detroit, by comparision, definitely is an asphalt jungle.

I assume a beach, but what beach?

http://www.dabitz.com/albums/BearMountain/aaa.jpg

http://www.richmangalleries.com/images/Bear-Mountainweb.jpg

http://www.payphone-project.com/payphones/photos/usa/212/square.jpg

http://www.stat.uiuc.edu/~masha/nyc/met1.jpg

(Did you get my email?)

It's all context, though.

"I'm moving to NYC because it seems cool (or from past experience, one knows it is cool) and I think I would enjoy it given my interests and goals." = very spiff

"I'm moving to NYC because there is nowhere else in the world that has anything like any of this anywhere else and I refuse to believe that anyone would say otherwise and anyone who does just doesn't understand." = er (and NO, I don't think anyone on this thread has said this -- but I have encountered it face to face more than once, and it just makes me scratch my head)

Ned, you do this on every single thread about any city ever. "Oh yes it's lovely but I only want to live on the west coast". Do you realize this?

I think everyone's wanting to move to NYC is fine. It just means that there will be less people in Seattle when I move there at the end of September, and that's fine with me.

wrong

If I do, it is partially hyperbolic. I've considered a move to Michigan seriously at one point, for instance, in another instance was coming around to the idea of living in the UK, and looking in the future both Australia and New Zealand were captivating enough for me to want to visit again and not necessarily rule out a move. I don't necessarily think I'll be living on the west coast the rest of my life.

I'm so sorry, Ned!

Fair enough, and you'd know better than I, but in the time I was there I didn't have much luck finding the kind of places I needed to find for me.

Not only that, but the amount of $$ necessary to live there was enough to make relaxation nearly impossible for me even if I had known of a place I could go to be alone for a while.

I have more respect, approval, whatever, for any of the upthread reasons to move to NYC

Agreed there. Ain't nobody here idiots none, which is the point, really.

The pics are beautiful, but prove nothing. Anybody from any city can post pretty pictures of their home city. Sorry, but it's true.

Anyways, I didn't mean for this thread to be "people that live in NYC, defend it," but rather: Why is NYC is the default place for people to move to? I like NYC, it's great fun, but I've had just as much fun in every city I've lived in or visited. Do people just have no imagination?