Is London or New York a more attractive place to live?

Guest   Mon Sep 08, 2008 3:27 am GMT
<<Whoever said it doesn't snow in NYC is a jackass. Last year it snowed at least 2-3 dozen times, and during most of the winter the ground was covered in disgusting black snow. It'll probably start snowing again during the usual time, December or so. >>


Regarding 2008 snowfall in NYC (at least up to Feb 12, 2008):

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/feeling-flaky-maybe-just-a-little-bit/
Northern Chinese   Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:26 am GMT
London is a better place to live in than New York...
Guest   Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:48 pm GMT
New York city is global. London is still a village.
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:09 pm GMT
Northern Chinese (assuming you are not one of these irritating Guests in disguise):

You cannot make such a sweeping statement with nothing to back it up at all and then expect to be taken seriously. Before that happens you have to give your reasons why you think that "London is a better place than New York in which to live".

Without having been anywhere closer to NYC than Land's End in Cornwall, England, I know for sure that there are aspects of New York which I would really like and which I know for sure London doesn't have, and I know as sure as eggs is eggs it would be the same with the cities reversed.

Even so, I am of course tremendously biased - no matter how exciting NYC would be to me in so many ways, were I to stay there for any length of time, I would, in time, feel the irresistible urge to fly back to London by the next plane out, and that's coming from a Scot resident since birth in one of the world's most beautiful cities, Edinburgh. I have mixed feelings at the present time about the very strong possibility of being transferred down to London in the very near future on what could be a very long stay, but as it's only about an 80 minute flight and little more than 4 hours by train back and forth between here and London it's not too bad at all.

In NYC I would soon begin to long for all the things London possesses which NYC never could - all the cultural and immense historical connections, plus all the traditional pomp and ceremony, not to mention the familiar values and characteristics of the British lifestyle still quite prominent in a city as hugely diverse and multi-cultural as London most assuredly is, and, most importantly, the fantastic night life and social and leisure pursuits London has at your disposal 24/7.

Another massive advantage London has over NYC - the very close proximity of Continental Europe - all within very easy reach in no time at all when compared with the time it takes to cross the wide Atlantic.

All those varied Languages and cultures so close at hand and all bound up in the same Union and within easy reach of each other. In NYC I would feel so isolated and cut off from all that, to be prefectly frank with you.

I spent the past weekend with a group of Morris dancers down in the very, very English area of Gloucestershire known as the Cotswolds - the name for the range of hills down in that part of Southern England. That was an experience I won't forget in a hurry! One of my friends is an Englishman living here in Edinburgh and he is currently having an uphill struggle trying to transform a group of Scottish guys, all about our own age or maybe a wee bit older, into a troupe of Morris dancers, a concept alien to many Scotsmen as Morris dancing is very much an English tradition, whereas here in Scotland, like with cricket, it has never held much appeal.
Guest   Mon Sep 08, 2008 5:16 pm GMT
-In NYC I would feel so isolated and cut off from all that, to be prefectly frank with you. -

Canada and Quebec are close within 3 hrs (car)
Guest   Mon Sep 08, 2008 5:17 pm GMT
>> Canada and Quebec are close within 3 hrs (car) <<

Seattle would be a better option then. Canada is only 100 miles away.
Trawicks   Mon Sep 08, 2008 5:27 pm GMT
I live in New York City, and can maybe try to offer some insight.

NYC is a pretty different animal than London, even if the two have similar economies. NYC has no real unified culture the way London does. Right now I am sitting in cubicle at my office in Manhattan. Surrounding me are a New Zealander, two Brits, a girl from Long Island, a guy from Ohio, a Canadian and an accountant from Senegal. In London, you get the sense that within a generation the children of these people will have all adopted a certain London culture. That's just not the case in New York. 3/4 of the people I have just listed will move on, going to some other American city or to another country. Even American transplants often end up elsewhere. There's a transience here that makes it hard for a real local culture to establish itself, outside of the early-twentieth century immigrant culture that has largely moved to the suburbs or the far outer boroughs.

However, in terms of amenities, I think New York beats any city, hands down. I live off a fairly busy street in the middle-class neighborhood of Astoria (just across the river from Midtown Manhattan). On that street alone, there are dozens of pubs, all kinds of ethnic restaurants, shops galore, three grocery stores, and countless other businesses. And this is in a fairly residential community, not a bustling Manhattan neighborhood like the East Village. Even small communities slightly off the beaten path in New York seem to have more to offer than entire mid-sized American cities.

In terms of weather, New York can be maddeningly inconsistent. Some winters are fairly mild, comparable to the British Isles. Then the next year it feels like you're living in Moscow. It's just so insanely changeable. Summers are pretty brutal, and that would be one reason I might opt for London over New York. The city heat can make for blisteringly hot July days.
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Sep 08, 2008 8:14 pm GMT
***On that street alone, there are dozens of pubs, all kinds of ethnic restaurants, shops galore, three grocery stores, and countless other businesses***

Yes, that sounds fantastic - I love being in such a district with so many amenities close at hand, but to be honest (I'm naturally sticking up for London now, as yuou would expect and I'm not even a Londoner and never will be!) you could well be describing the Edgware Road, the Finchley Road, Queensway Bayswater, the King's Road Chelsea, Notting Hill Gate, Upper Street Islington, Hampstead High Street, Camden High Street to name just a very few main thoroughfares in Inner London fitting your description, and discounting the whole maze of side streets containing a veritable Serendipity of unexpected pleasures, much like your "hidden communities" in New York.

Such is the wholesale diversity of London's population now that whole districts are devoted to the appropriate ethnic commercialism be it in the provision of ethnic restaurants, shops and businesses and whatever goes towards catering for the local populace and their needs. Strolling around certain areas of London you really wouldn't think you were still in England except for the drizzle* and the familar red double deck buses.

*I did that just for effect - believe me London can have plenty of beautiful days of cloudless blue skies and hot sunshine - you may even see the occasional guardsman flake out on Horse Guards Parade on ceremonial occasions - such as the Trooping the Colour in June - the ultimate indignity for those guys wearing the heavy black busbies and scarlet tunics. Heatwaves in the UK don't usually last very long anyway -except in exceptional years under blocked high pressure systems keeping the Atlantic fronts at bay way out to the west which bring us most of our maritime weather conditions whatever the time of year.

Fortunately the UK rarely experiences any extremes of any kind, but every now and again we get taken by surprise but never on the scale of those which regularly seem to affect the United States, but we make much more of a fuss about it all than the Americans do. Three millimetres of snow on the British road system can, and does, cause amazing chaos, no kidding!

Temperature records to date for Central London (highest and lowest) are -18C and +37C so more of a range than you would expect, but those are definite extremes - the lowest was recorded many years ago and the highest quite recently, so it reflects the current change in climate patterns in the UK. Other places in the UK have seen temperatures both considerably lower and a wee bit higher than London's record.

btw even Moscow is now experiencing winters very much milder than they were used to up until not all that long ago.
Guest   Tue Sep 09, 2008 3:39 am GMT
I think both Trawicks and Damian have offered very compelling comments on the issue at hand. But I do think Trawicks does offer one truly penetrating insight into the differnces between New York and London:
"NYC has no real unified culture the way London does. "
"In London, you get the sense that within a generation the children of these people will have all adopted a certain London culture. "
"There's a transience here that makes it hard for a real local culture to establish itself."

Very praiseworthy !


BTW, Trawicks, are you a local New Yorker?
Uriel   Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:14 am GMT
London seemed to be a lot like that passage Trawicks described, although I only walked around it for a couple of days. Lots of good ethnic restaurants, stores, sights, etc. But leaving London for sticks was a lot like (I imagine) leaving NYC to go upstate -- white bread all the way.

(I lived in upstate NY for 5 years, so I can get away with saying that. We had Italian dairy farmers and Amish people. And precious little else!)

If you ever go to NY and have a desperate hankering for a taste of France, Damian, you can always hop a flight to nearby Montreal. One caveat, though -- the joke is that it has "all of the attitude, but none of the scenery" of its mother country. But that's okay -- from what I remember, the northern east coast is very beautiful, with rolling hills, plenty of trees and greenery, tons of farmland, and spectacular autumnal foliage -- right up a European boy's alley!
Damian in Edinburgh   Tue Sep 09, 2008 8:11 am GMT
You know what - since this thread has started I have developed quite an urge to go over to New York - sadly, that's out of the question at the present time as I only have a week or so left out of this year's holiday entitlement from work. Christmas and New Year come as statutory breaks anyway and no way could I ever, ever be outside of Scotland come Hogmanay - I'd rather hurl myself into a vat of boiling oil. Did you know that that was a form of torture in mediaeval/Tudor England? Such humanity they displayed towards fellow beings in those days...

There was until recently a TV ad over here for eggs, of all things - and it was centred on a fast food type place in NYC - and it was accompanied by a jingle that went something this - "How do you like your eggs in the morning?" Then it showed you the amazing capacity shown by the guys running the place for dishing up the eggs in a whole variety of ways, and then we saw two uniformed NYC cops sitting in their police car happily eating their breakfast concocted just as they ordered it.

Yes, Uriel, I know that Montreal is probably more French than Paris! But as I can nip over to Paris (or if time is a problem just Calais or Boulogne) for un croissant et cafe au lait quite easily, but I reckon I'd definitely stay in the Big Apple and savour its many delights. It sounds really appealing now, so then I would certainly be qualified to make valid comparisons in this twist on a Tale of Two Cities.

You mentioned "attitude" - well, I can think of no city that could possibly beat Paris on that score, glorious as the city itself is. Still, I did encounter one very friendly, extremely amicable gendarme the last time I was there. He thought I looked lost.....actually it was my companion who was lost.
Upstater   Tue Sep 09, 2008 12:59 pm GMT
<<that's out of the question at the present time as I only have a week or so left out of this year's holiday entitlement from work>>

If you want the truest New York City experience, you should proabably come over in late July or early August. If you get lucky, we might be having a heat wave, and perhaps you'll get to experience a night where the temperature is still 95F at 11PM, and no lower than 84F in the early AM. With any luck, the dew point will be about 79F, so you can drink in that wonderful night air that NYC sometimes has to offer.

While you're over here, you might want to broaden your experience by visiting a more typical place in the US (without having to travel out to the Midwest or South). You could head up to Oneonta (for example), and visit the strip mall area south of town, featuring stores like Home Depot, Lowe's, Office Max, Walmart, etc. You could even stop by the Home Depot, and pick up a couple of small souvenirs -- perhaps a thermostat and a can of wasp spray. Then you could claim to have experienced the "real US" at its finest.

The only fly in the ointment is that the best tome to experience the true flavor of Oneonta is in the early winter, perhaps January or December.
Uriel   Wed Sep 10, 2008 7:00 am GMT
<<"How do you like your eggs in the morning?" Then it showed you the amazing capacity shown by the guys running the place for dishing up the eggs in a whole variety of ways, and then we saw two uniformed NYC cops sitting in their police car happily eating their breakfast concocted just as they ordered it.>>

You know, I met an Australian online who expressed the same sort of amazement at how many variations in cooked eggs we have. I guess to many people there are two choices: raw or not. They need footnotes on their menu to figure out all the permutations we routinely offer: hardboiled, softboiled, poached, scrambled, coddled, sunny-side up, over easy, over medium, over hard. Omelettes -- with any number of fillings to go inside and on top. Her in NM we add huevos rancheros, chorizo and eggs, and fried eggs on top of enchiladas (weird, and not for breakfast, either!)

We never give all this variety a second thought -- you mean other people DON'T have a million ways to fry an egg? ;P
Damian in Edinburgh   Wed Sep 10, 2008 8:16 am GMT
Boiled.....soft, medium or hard. Hard boiled then imagination can come into play and they can be used in all sorts of food presentations, not just mixed salads.

Fried - with a frill, without a frill, soft and runny centred or "well done" so I suppose we do sort of do your "sunny side up" or "quick flip over in one quick fick of the spatula" movement.

Scrambled - simply solo or with cream or just plain milk; with or without
herbs; with or without grated cheese; with or without hot buttered toast. Best with some chopped fresh salmon straight from the Spey*.

Poached - in a special pan or simply dunked into boiling water with or without added vinegar; with or without hot buttered toast; solo or placed on top of smoked haddock.

Raw - not really recommended except if it forms part of a prairie oyster or some other form of hangover cure. They can also be used this way to chuck at politicians, and if well aimed at a really smart suit so much the tastier.

Of course eggs can form an essential part of a zillion dishes as you well know.

*The Spey - a river in Scotland renowned for its salmon. Pronounced as "spay".

Upstater: You ain't gonna put me off, you know. You have wasps (so do we as it happens) but I bet you don't have our persistent and intensely aggravating midges, as i've mentioned before elsewhere in this Forum. Walmart over here is known as Asda. Close to Bristol, England, in the huge Cribbs Causeway shopping complex, just off the M5 motorway, there is one massive Walmart store - with the name Asda alongside it.
Sous chef   Wed Sep 10, 2008 3:23 pm GMT
<<Fried - with a frill, without a frill, soft and runny centred or "well done" so I suppose we do sort of do your "sunny side up" or "quick flip over in one quick fick of the spatula" movement. >>

Eggs fried on both sides can either be--

"over well" - cooked until yolk has solidified
"over hard" - cooked until yolk has solidified and is broken
"over medium" - yolk is of medium consistency; egg white thoroughly cooked
"over easy" or "sunny side down" - yolk is a thin liquid; egg white partially cooked