After splitting my time evenly between New York, San Francisco, and LA for about three years, a semi-humorous comparison of the three cities.
NYC | SF | LA |
Money. | Make the world a “better” place. | I just want to be “happy.” |
Honor. | Righteousness. | Entitlement. |
Luxury. | Gadgetry. | Comfort. |
Live to work. | Work is play. | Work to live. |
Materialism and consumerism. | Tech and health. | Feelings and feel good. |
Hardened. | Pampered. | Doesn’t want to move. |
Does it make money? | How's it improve society? | What's it got to do with me? |
Sell and finance things. | Create things. | Stylize things. |
Mechanical Turk. | Machine automation. | No automation. |
Tech = Man on foot fetched by app. | Tech = Autonomous drone. | Tech = Laundry machine w/o coins. |
Backup servers in the same building. | Backup servers across the globe. | Still moving past CDs and VHS tapes. |
GPS doesn’t work. | Can’t drive w/o GPS. | Can’t drive with a GPS. |
Drives competently without tech. | Tries to follow GPS into a river. | Drives past you 4 times at full speed. |
Four seasons. | Fog. | Smog. |
City never sleeps. | Even the mall closes by 8pm. | Regular hours. |
Can get 3 things done a day. | Can get 10 things done a day. | Takes all day just to get somewhere. |
Subway goes everywhere. | Subway literally on one street only. | "Subway." |
$1M for an apartment. | $1M for a closet. | $1M for brand new house of wood. |
Old but quality buildings. | Tries to look like an old warehouse. | Actually is an old warehouse. |
Having elevator operators is normal. | Sewage smell every block is normal. | Paper-thin walls & roof leaks normal. |
People everywhere. | Siren noises everywhere. | Motorcycle noises everywhere. |
Homeless give speeches. | Homeless scream all day and night. | Homeless rant about politics. |
Rats on the subway tracks. | Needles and human feces on ground. | Garbage on every sidewalk. |
Musicians jamming on street corner. | Homeless peeing on street corner. | Get shot on street corner. |
Celebrate with festivals. | Celebrate by burning down own city. | Celebrate by being stuck in traffic. |
Orderliness in desperate times. | Violence in the name of justice. | Punch whoever’s in closest proximity. |
Shop away your tears. | Celebrate your failures. | Take pride in your weaknesses. |
Spend free time trying to kill time. | Spend free time working or serving. | Spend free time "chilling." |
Broadway. | N/A. | Hollywood. |
Silicon Alley (Midtown). | Silicon Valley (Entire Bay). | Silicon Beach (Santa Monica). |
Wall Street. | Embarcadero / SOMA. | N/A. |
Brooklyn. | Oakland. | Los Angeles. |
Service oriented no matter what it is. | Doors open wrong way (fire hazard). | 15 minutes just to get the menu. |
Decent food at all prices. | Expensive food or crap food. | Expensive crap food. |
High cultured. | Mono cultured. | Blurgh-whatever cultured. |
Rules. | Numbers. | I tried. |
Punctual. | 10 minutes late. | Hours to days late. |
Passive aggressive. | Aggressively passive. | Blatantly shameless. |
Conformatively independent. | Independently conformative. | Misery loves company. |
Backed by what famous people said. | Backed by correlation = causation. | Backed by gut-feel. |
Offended by how you do things. | Offended by your opinions. | Offended by your success. |
Trying to politely be impolite. | Trying to save you from yourself. | Trying to justify taking from you. |
Because you're uncivilized. | Because you're literally a bad person. | Because you have more than enough. |
Think of how others remember you. | Think of your impact on the world. | What’s it matter if you die anyway? |
B+ on everything. | Always either A+ or F. | A for effort. |
Everything works at least half decent. | Half new, half assed. | At least there's the beach. |