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 and 9-5 life. | Make the world a “better” place. | I just want to be “happy.” |
Honor and integrity. | Self-righteousness. | Whatever's popular. |
Old luxury. | Minimum viable product. | Comfort. |
Live to work. | Work is play. | Work to live. |
Passions are just hobbies. | Careers are passions. | Passions are careers. |
Dreams of a normal family life. | Dreams of saving the world with an app. | Dreams of fame and popularity. |
Podcast stars. | Tech stars. | YouTube stars. |
Lack of adventure. | Lack of imagination. | Lack of authenticity. |
Authority, rules, and norms. | Tech and "social validation." | Feelings and feel good. |
Hardened. | Pampered. | Doesn’t want to move. |
Weight on shoulders. | Guilt chipped at every turn. | Room to breathe. |
Unfairness is part of life. | Fight unfairness with unfairness. | Unfairness is ok if I benefit. |
Too busy to meet you. | Too important to meet you. | Too lazy to meet you. |
Does it make money? | How's it improve society? | What's it got to do with me? |
Repackage and relabel. | Create new and uncharted. | Consume and regurgitate. |
Mechanical Turk. | Machine automation. | No automation. |
Man on foot fetched by app. | Autonomous cars and drones. | Laundry machine finally w/o coins. |
Backup servers in the same building. | Backup servers across the globe. | Not my problem. |
GPS doesn’t work. | Can’t drive w/o GPS. | Can’t drive with a GPS. |
Drives by cross-street name. | Follows 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. | Pockets of life in wasteland. |
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." |
Trains frequent and on time. | Buses late and rarely come. | Bus driver laughs and tells you to chill. |
$1M for a studio apartment. | $1M for a closet. | $1M for house of cheap wood. |
Old but functional buildings. | Tries to look like a warehouse. | Actually is an old warehouse. |
People everywhere. | Siren noises everywhere. | Motorcycle noises everywhere. |
Homeless give speeches. | | Homeless rant about politics. |
Rats on the subway tracks. | | Garbage on every sidewalk. |
Musicians jamming on street corner. | Homeless peeing on street corner. | Get shot on street corner. |
Celebrate with festivals. | Celebrate by vandalizing own city. | Celebrate by being stuck in traffic. |
Order in desperate times. | Violence in the name of justice. | Punch whoever’s in closest proximity. |
Compassion for your neighbors. | Compassion for anyone except your neighbors. | "Compassion" for the hand that feeds you. |
Shop away your tears. | Celebrate your failures. | Take pride in your weaknesses. |
Spend free time killing time. | Spend free time working. | Spend free time "chilling." |
Board gamers. | "Gaymers". | YouTube gamers. |
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. |
By the book. | 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. |
$15 for 2 slices of toast and sides. | $15 for just the toast. | $15 for burnt toast. |
Apologizes for bad service. | It's a feature, not a bug. | But I already got your money. |
Your fault for being different. | Your fault for being in the way of progress. | Your fault for letting me get away with it. |
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. |
Sales pitching in casual conversation. | Lectures w/out knowing anything about you. | Always talking about food and weather. |
"Helps" by telling you it's not possible. | "Helps" by telling you to change your goal. | "Helps" by just saying random positive things. |
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. |
Don't see it, so it's not true. | Didn't hear a word, but this is the answer. | Everything's subjective, so I can't be wrong. |
Mind your own business. | Forced democratization of your life. | Willingly sacrifice your life for fame. |
Think of how others remember you. | Think of your impact on the world. | What’s it matter if you die anyway? |
At least I have manners. | At least I'm politically correct. | At least I have an opinion. |
B+ on everything. | Always either A+ or F. | A for effort. |
Everything works half decent. | Half new, half assed. | At least there's the beach. |