Thankfully NY is also not as PC and SJW filled as SV, which helps cement NY as a friendlier, equal place to live. Meritocracies in spirit as well as letter!
I have lived both places (SF in the dotcom period) and now live in New York.
I love SV for many things and there are many great people there, but at the end of the day, New York is my city because its more human, honest, candid and less tribal.
I live in SV and have friends in NYC. The sense we get is that NYers, and especially those in NY media, take some joy in negative news about SV. It could be because Wall Street (and NY law/consulting/ad firms) used to be the most-coveted jobs for high-performing young people, and then SV rose up as an uber-desirable career destination.
I don't get that comment. My experience is the complete opposite.
People in SV like to think they have unconventional ideas, but they all think the same way. ie, if you don't have the same pseudo-thought-provoking-disruptive ideas as the others, you will be laughed at literally.
I will quote Noam Chomsky, that perfectly summarizes SV in my opinion:
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One of the ways you control what people think is by creating the illusion that there’s a debate going on, but making sure that that debate stays within very narrow margins.
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NYC is way more diverse both graphically and in thoughts as you have people having completely different lifes, in different type of industries, with real-issues at hands.
So both are diverse and have large foreign populations. But SV’s diversity largely comes from immigrants in search of the American Dream, most of whom tend to have affinity with the rest of America as well.
Manhattan in contrast has a lot of global citizens who would have more affinity with other cosmopolitan cities like London and Paris than with the rest of America.
I think some of us may really like to hear specifics regarding these stunning differences. I grew up in NY and as far as I can tell both NY and SV are high tax areas with extremely high costs of living.
To be fair, it's also much nicer to live in (at least for white people) than it ever has been. New York before it became a police state was basically Gotham City.
There are plenty of people who feel the same way about the laws in New York and California. Having strong talent pools, and economies, in cities with different political climates means more people can live somewhere they're politically aligned and still have decent jobs.
Also, I'd like to point out that if you have a family, and have settled into a sort of more standard family life, SV is great - if you can afford it. If you're a young(er) single person, my god literally anywhere else is better to live.
For example - if you're on Tinder, use the "passport" feature to set your profile to NYC for two days. Let me know the number of matches you get.
NYC. Ticks off all but the last two. But salaries are more than high enough to make up for the high rent - especially if you’re willing to make some compromises about living by an urban rather than a suburban standard.
I love it here. There’s a great tech scene and tons of career opportunity without the pathological monoculture of SV.
You most definitely don’t need a car, though if our current elected officials have anything to say about it, 5 years from now the subways will stop working entirely and the city will come to a standstill because there is quite literally not enough road space for everyone to travel by car.
That last bit (plus, yes, the insane US approach to health care) is why I’m looking into getting out of the city; but in the meantime it’s a surprisingly good place to build a career and save a bit of money.
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