Thread by @EpistemicHope

I spent the past week in New York city. Here are some thoughts about the vibe.

One of the first thoughts that I had when I got here (I think, as a reflection of my having trouble with the subway system, like a NYC-noob) was "SF wants to present itself as comfortable. NY is very much NOT presenting itself as comfortable."

Living in New York is hard. That's why people are proud of it.

There's a trope of a person who grew up in some neighborhood in NY (Brooklyn or Harlem or the Bronx), and then makes it big somehow, and but insists on living in the neighborhood they grew up in, even if is less safe or less clean or whatever.

"I've lived here my whole life" they say "I'm not going to move just because [X]."

And I get it. I get how you could feel an attachment to Harlem, such that it felt like my HOME in a robust way, in a way that I couldn't imagine feeling an attachment to any place that I've lived.

Part of it is the thing above: living here is hard, and have to be hard in a way to put up with it. And there's a sort of camaraderie with everyone else who is putting up with it with you. There's a pride dealing with it.

But also, there's a vibrancy here which is new to me. The streets feel like they are bustling with _people_. Like, I have a sense that everyone around me here is a person living their life.

There's people on the street in Berkeley, but they feel sort of like...backdrop.

Here, I can pick out any random person, and they seem more like a real person somehow.

A person with plans, and family connections, making their way in the world.

Part of that is just that there are really a bunch of different races around: more black people and more hispanic people than I have frequent opertuntiy to see.

And I think part of what I'm picking up on is just lower class vibe, which is on display in NY in a way it for sure is not in Berkeley, or SF, or Chicago, or Phoenix.

New York is not hiding that that there are differences in classes. The middle class is right next to the lower class. They're all packed into this tiny island.

SF sort of feels like, or presents as if, it is ALL upper middle class. Not New York. New York is OWNING the class diversity.

Overall, I like it. It's refreshing.

It sort of makes me want to not live in Berkeley any more.

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