New York / London: Comparisons

[londonlawyer]

... Okay, but New York's core is also incredibly beautiful. Aren't the Upper West Side and Upper East Side "block after block of utterly magnificent buildings"?....

Again, I've heard from students who have studied abroad there that well-priced, good everyday food is not that easy to find, and in that sense, there isn't even a comparison to New York's offerings. For cost of living, it was reported to be 40% higher than New York's this past year. That's a substantial premium.

The UWS and some other areas of NY are beautiful, but most of Manhattan has so much crap. Consider Midtown, for example, there is as much crap as beauty. Fifth Ave. in the 40's, for example, is crap, as is most of 8th, 3rd, 2nd, etc.

I lived for years on the UES which is plagued with busted down tenements that have been stripped of their ornamentation, etc., etc. London is really beautiful. In NY, beauty is the exception and crap is the rule. The opposite is true in London.

As far as food goes, there is a lot of great, cheap Middle Eastern, Indian and Thai to be had.

[pianoman11686]

The UES is plagued by tenements? What about the entire lengths of 5th, Madison, and Park from ~50th street to the 90s that are absolutely pristine? That's over 100 truly beautiful blocks right there.

I guess I just have to see London for myself because this conversation is going nowhere. Apologies for dragging the thread further off topic.

[Alonzo-ny]

Ive been to both from a non-resident point of view. London is more beautiful for the simple fact that developers dont get to destroy beautiful buildings like there is a plague of in NY. The food is more expensive but everyone is paid proportionally more. I for one prefer mild weather to disgusting hot humid summers and ice freezing winters.

[stache]

Here's a new thread where we can compare -

[KenNYC]

This seems rather silly to me, 90% of London is utter poop too. Sure, if you stay in the 'right' areas, London is beautiful - so is New York. But head out of the touristy areas and London is just as worn down, filthy and ugly as any other major city.

[ASchwarz]

I don't think most people would agree that London is proportionally nicer.

It has lots of commieblocks and social housing, especially to the east, and has lots of postwar crap all over the place. Even Central London has lots of crap, especially on the South Bank, in and around the eastern stretches of Oxford (really much of the area between the City and West End), around Euston and around St. Pancras.

Now Paris or Vienna are beautiful cities, but London is definitely not among the world's most beautiful. One of the world's greatest, of course, but not among the most beautiful.

As for restaurants and pay, in both cases New York > London. New York is more of a foodie mecca, is cheaper and has more diverse strengths.

Pay is somewhat higher in New York, and buying power is considerably higher.

[Alonzo-ny]

In terms of modern architecture I think London is miles ahead.

[futurecity]

Miles ahead? I hope your not talking about that ugly Swiss Re building, yuck.

I don't see London being miles ahead of NY in modernity at all -- and I hate their use of groundscrapers.

What amazing modern architecture that has been completed are you, in God's name, referring to? I hope its not Canary Wharf.

Are you talking about their yet to materialize scrapers?

Really, London's doesn't have a 'cutting edge' look at all and really, I think NY beats London in terms of modernity with Hearst, Seagram, etc.

[KenNYC]

Are you being serious? There's definitely cities I could see argued that is matching or surpassing New York these days (sadly), but London would certainly not be one of them.

[futurecity]

I don't think most people would agree that London is proportionally nicer.

It has lots of commieblocks and social housing, especially to the east, and has lots of postwar crap all over the place. Even Central London has lots of crap, especially on the South Bank, in and around the eastern stretches of Oxford (really much of the area between the City and West End), around Euston and around St. Pancras.

Now Paris or Vienna are beautiful cities, but London is definitely not among the world's most beautiful. One of the world's greatest, of course, but not among the most beautiful.

As for restaurants and pay, in both cases New York > London. New York is more of a foodie mecca, is cheaper and has more diverse strengths.

Pay is somewhat higher in New York, and buying power is considerably higher.

Its true, WestEnd is not as pristine as LL would have you think...plenty of junk especially in Maryleborne and along Oxford street and Tottenham Court Road, etc.. Plenty of ugly council blocks too even in Ritzy areas like Kensington and Holland Park. There are also many sterile looking groundscrapers in the CITY that do not inspire.. Next time travel to the South Bank to see some CRAP!

Really, its older buildings are more ornate than ours, but its not as magnificient as some of you are all hyping... however, its pedestrianized zones are great and I like that. ny could learn from that

Oh yeah, its not fair to compare small beautiful cities like Vienna with great metropolises - apples/oranges guys.

If you want to talk beautiful, you should check out some Asian cities...forget this euro stuff.

[Derek2k3]

I wouldn't say miles ahead...
I still see more great renderings than actual building in London.

Also, New York builds a lot more than London and much of it just happens to be crap.
If you single out the 5% that is good in New York I bet it is almost comparable in number and quality to what London produces.

As for being nicer, London is twice as large and half as dense as New York and therefore its wealthy/upscale areas are much more spread out.
Imagine if the wealth of just Central Park West was spread throughout low-rises and mansions.

Also it helps that London is 1,500 years older than New York and the capital of its country.

[Alonzo-ny]

Also it helps that London is 1,500 years older than New York and the capital of its country.

That's no argument, unless there are rakes of 1,500 year old buildings making up the bulk of London's building stock.

People seem to be arguing Manhattan vs all of London which isnt fair. If you are going to bring in East End council estates then compare that with the horror that is the Bronx.

You see more renderings of larger high rise projects but you are ignoring the smaller scale projects that exist all over the place.

Futurecity you have a weird sense of beauty, Vienna is one of the most boring, sterile cities Ive been too, and Asian cities are urban mistakes on a massive scale. And you are also slightly hypocritical to think Hearst is beautiful compared to Swiss Re, designed by the same architect with a similar structure but with a more interesting shape and internal spaces. Also in case you haven't noticed but architecture isnt just skyscrapers and they aren't the barometer of good architecture.

[stache]

The Bronx isn't that bad any more.

[Chrysler New Yorker]

Comparing New York to London is silly. London is to England what NYC,Chicago,Boston and Washington DC combined would be to the United States. NYC is just our financial\commercial center.

LondonLawyer made a good point to start this thread, NYC has too much crap, and our subway is the worst, most disgusting on earth. The Tube is lightyears ahead of NY. As for beaty I'll take Paris over both combined.

[Alonzo-ny]

The Bronx isn't that bad any more.

What did they knock down all the projects?

[londonlawyer]

http://www.jeudiland.com/First%20Avenue%20scene.jpg

[NYC4Life]

If you are going to bring in East End council estates then compare that with the horror that is the Bronx.


As a resident of The Bronx, and a native New Yorker (born and raised) I find that comment rather offensive. If you and fellow Hooligan LondonLawer have such a distasteful dislike of New York, then You guys shouldn't bother visiting a "New York" dedicated forum. Instead of bashing a great city and comparing it to London (which itself is a great city), You should rather compare NYC to the 70's and 80's. NYC has made vast strides over the last 3 decades to clean its image and to become a world class city. To make disgusting comments about the city, You should take into account the 8 Million residents who call this city "home."

Every city has its ugly side and London is no different, even today. Look how far the city has come when in the 1940's during WWII, London was nothing more than a bombed out shell of a city.

The point in even starting this city vs. city thread is rather childish and immature. If you guys are happy with London, good for you. But to many others who live and love New York, we would rather live and die here than anywhere else, cause we are "True" New Yorkers who appreciate what this city is all about. You hooligans sure as hell aren't.

[antinimby]

Still waiting for nick-taylor to chime in. This thread just isn't official until he christens it. ;)

[KenNYC]

Comparing New York to London is silly. London is to England what NYC,Chicago,Boston and Washington DC combined would be to the United States. NYC is just our financial\commercial center.

LondonLawyer made a good point to start this thread, NYC has too much crap, and our subway is the worst, most disgusting on earth. The Tube is lightyears ahead of NY. As for beaty I'll take Paris over both combined.

I'll pretty much support all of this wholehearted, although I have to say I have a thing for Tokyo, there's something about that city that just gets me in all the right places :)

And yeah, the subway in this city needs to be taken out in the backyard and be shot, it's horrid.

[futurecity]

That's no argument, unless there are rakes of 1,500 year old buildings making up the bulk of London's building stock.

People seem to be arguing Manhattan vs all of London which isnt fair. If you are going to bring in East End council estates then compare that with the horror that is the Bronx.

You see more renderings of larger high rise projects but you are ignoring the smaller scale projects that exist all over the place.

Futurecity you have a weird sense of beauty, Vienna is one of the most boring, sterile cities Ive been too, and Asian cities are urban mistakes on a massive scale. And you are also slightly hypocritical to think Hearst is beautiful compared to Swiss Re, designed by the same architect with a similar structure but with a more interesting shape and internal spaces. Also in case you haven't noticed but architecture isnt just skyscrapers and they aren't the barometer of good architecture.

My sense of beauty is my own and who are you anyway to critisze it anway? Are you an elitist architect who thinks only 'he' knows what constitutes beauty and to hell with anyone else's feelings on the matter?

I said it wasn't fair to compare Vienna with mega cities -- it still is beautiful and very livable for a small city and to be honest, I think its center is much prettier than London's.

I feel Hearst is much more dignified and regal than that disgusting and ostentatious ugly dildo of a structure you seem to love. And Asian cities are far from mistakes, their vibrancy and futuristic architecture is their beauty, which would make most european cities look like little sleepy towns. Also, they dare to build and innovate in modern architecture - London has not innovated as its nimbies are too strong to allow true experimentation-- look at Dubai (an asian city) or Shanghai. European beauty is not the be-all-and-end-all - you are incredibly eurocentric. Oh, and your smaller scale projects are hardly interesting -- merely monstrosities including your beloved groundscrapers. You have very little to show for your so called boom that was announced years ago. Frankly, many elegant areas of London are dead and officious looking -- full of empty streets and vacant mansions owned by gulf and russians plutocrats. There is little social feel in those districts - they are like morgues. You have nothing on par with the WTC towers in height or beauty, neither the proposed MOMA tower. The shard is a thumb tack by an inferior architect who is incredibly overrated.

London builds glass shit and boring boxes too -- just that they are lower and even more dull than in NY - example - paddington basin, southbank, etc..I havn't seen anything in London that is great modernity and it looks like I'll be waiting for years to come. Its sad when Paris has more innovative and ground breaking plans than London does, AND it has its superior historic center. C'est bien vrais!

You have your superior transport system, yes, but its a shame they didn't move LHR years ago - so many of your beautiful areas in West London are blighted by noise including the Queen's residence - and it looks like with runway #3, more beautiful suburbs will be getting ready to be overflown again all in a specious fight with Paris and Frankfurt for air superiority. At least NY had the sense of locating its main INTL airport on the coast.

Why do you bother posting in a NY forum anyway if London is so superior in your view? All these people here bashing NY should show some respect to people who reside in NY when posting on a NY Forum. I for one do not go on to a London board and start berating the city and comparing it to NY.

[stache]

alonzo, I guess in your mind any housing project has to be awful by nature of its existence.

[Alonzo-ny]

Stache, Ive yet to find one that isnt. I have visited the Bronx and wasnt impressed at all by the projects ive seen. Actually if we are being honest about architectural projects Ive never heard of any outside of London where there they are actually considered good designs and a few are even landmarked.

OK this thread has already fallen into the pointlessness of the NY v Chicago thread. Except this time its the NYers who have gotta pissy. Barely a page into the thread and people are already going to the 'if you dont like it dont come here' argument. London Lawyer and I have both lived in and loved NY and have said that before, if you guys dont want to make a serious discussion of this and have to fall back on insults then I suggest its you who go elsewhere because that isnt what we are about on this forum.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Why do you bother posting in a NY forum anyway if London is so superior in your view?The sort of comment that pushes these threads into personal mud-slinging.


All these people here bashing NY should show some respect to people who reside in NY when posting on a NY Forum.I think we can take it. And you haven't been here long enough to evaluate the sum-total of veteran posters.

[ASchwarz]

http://www.jeudiland.com/First%20Avenue%20scene.jpg

To me this looks great. I love the diversity of building styles and heights, the streetwall and the vibrancy, especially for what is essentially a residential neighborhood.

And excepting Paris, there's nothing in Northern Europe with this type of density.

Oh, and the NY subway is definitely better than the tube. It's generally uglier, but I'll take air conditioning, 500 stations, 24 hour service and numerous express lines over the tube. NYC has 50% higher ridership despite being located in the auto-crazy U.S.

The best transit is in Germany and Japan.

[nick-taylor]

Oh, and the NY subway is definitely better than the tube. It's generally uglier, but I'll take air conditioning, 500 stations, 24 hour service and numerous express lines over the tube. NYC has 50% higher ridership despite being located in the auto-crazy U.S.I would like to point out that the issue with air conditioning will soon be a thing of the past. The first rolling stock to incorporate air-conditioning will be rolling out in early 2009. Deep level tube trains will probably adopt a 'gel pack' under the seats and floor that will cool the trains, before re-cooling at the end of the line.

In addition an innovative cooling sytem that will re-cycle the water that leaks into the tube network to cool the air will be rolled out across the deep level platform network.

The Tube network closes to allow for repairs and maintenance, which is probably why:
- Fatalities on the networks are far higher in New York (including taking into consideration ridership and hours of operation)
- Stations don't look like santa came down the chimney
- Incorporate modern technology such as Oyster card, help points, Oyster card incorporated into mobile phones and platform display boards, etc...
London has run a vast network of Night Buses since 1913 that dwarfs the heavy rail network in coverage. It should also be noted that some 6mn+ people use buses in London every day (far more than the Tube handles)

In addition it is a common error to believe that London lacks any express routes, London has two layers of heavy rail: the London Underground and National Rail, both complement each other acting as seperate lines and express routes similar to the setup in Tokyo where you have four tier rail routes: local/semi-express/express/regional-intercity. In fact the largest heavy rail network in London is not the Tube but the National Rail lines.

[Alonzo-ny]

I agree in principle on the 24hr part but in NY its barely worth the torture and I regularly used cabs late night rather than suffer the intolerable waits. Id like to see a full comparison of transport networks as you cant blindly compare the underground to the subway as the supplementary suburban train networks provide coverage and also bus and light rail networks.

Yes the best transport is in Germany and Japan but thats irrelevant on this thread.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

Well for a start New York is probably more liveable for most people who have dark hair and a good tan.

You can be late for your train in Manhattan, run for the door, and not get shot in the head 8 times by those who are supposed to protect and serve.

Thats always a good start to the day.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

But Im never ever going to get involved in such a damn awful pissing contest.

See, I didnt attend Eton or Harrow, so Im not officially welcome in a lot of London. Without being able to access a lot of the City, I wouldnt know what really goes on.

[futurecity]

To me this looks great. I love the diversity of building styles and heights, the streetwall and the vibrancy, especially for what is essentially a residential neighborhood.

And excepting Paris, there's nothing in Northern Europe with this type of density.

Oh, and the NY subway is definitely better than the tube. It's generally uglier, but I'll take air conditioning, 500 stations, 24 hour service and numerous express lines over the tube. NYC has 50% higher ridership despite being located in the auto-crazy U.S.

The best transit is in Germany and Japan.

I don't like this street...I think its more along the lines of banal Tokyo architecture or some of Hong Kong. Of course, there are much nicer NY streets to show and one could find equally ugly streets in London. If one were to venture into many a street in Seoul, one would be sure to come across similar depressing streetscapes. However, there are no lights or 'soul' to enliven the NY scene.

Regarding Japan, I don't think being squashed into a train like a sardine by a man with gloves would be a pleasant experience no matter how efficient and extensive their network is. It isn't good enough to deal with the crowds of Tokyo comfortably.

London's regional rail system is large, but most people need to change to the tube as most lines stop at the major stations without an RER type pass through. Its good though and a lot of funds are being put into to building the new lines.

It is important that Londoners be mindful that their system does not match up to the likes of Paris' and not feel the need to post figures which state otherwise b/c the truth is there - the pass through system is vastly superior to London's single pass through tunnel

Show me an area of London like west chelsea in NY, with tons of unique modern projects going up by famous architects? I desire that the original poster from London show the extent of their modern architectural projects. It is vital that he come and highlight such projects so that a fair comparison with NY's current architectural boom can be made.

[futurecity]

But Im never ever going to get involved in such a damn awful pissing contest.

See, I didnt attend Eton or Harrow, so Im not officially welcome in a lot of London. Without being able to access a lot of the City, I wouldnt know what really goes on.

No you are not welcome unless you have the required work permit - which you would need to obtain to live and work there. But otherwise you don't need to go to Eton to enjoy London's financial zone.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

What? A lot of "the City" is off limits to those without the proper "background". Are you E/H or Oxbridge yourself? Believe it or not, some of us actually know about "the City".

I had a visa to work in London, but never used it to live and work there. As they say "You call that living?".

[stache]

futurecity, the original poster in this thread is not from London.

[Derek2k3]

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/the-city-that-never-sleeps-london/

The City That Never Sleeps — London?!

September 12, 2008, 9:22 am

By Jennifer 8. Lee



Interesting comments too...

[nick-taylor]

What? A lot of "the City" is off limits to those without the proper "background". Are you E/H or Oxbridge yourself? Believe it or not, some of us actually know about "the City".

I had a visa to work in London, but never used it to live and work there. As they say "You call that living?".There is a difference between a failed asylum application and an expired visa. ;~)





London's regional rail system is large, but most people need to change to the tube as most lines stop at the major stations without an RER type pass through. Its good though and a lot of funds are being put into to building the new lines.

It is important that Londoners be mindful that their system does not match up to the likes of Paris' and not feel the need to post figures which state otherwise b/c the truth is there - the pass through system is vastly superior to London's single pass through tunnel

Show me an area of London like west chelsea in NY, with tons of unique modern projects going up by famous architects? I desire that the original poster from London show the extent of their modern architectural projects. It is vital that he come and highlight such projects so that a fair comparison with NY's current architectural boom can be made.London's regional/metro rail system is indeed even larger than the National Rail lines within London, the route km is something around 5,000km (several tens of thousands of line km) adding some 600+ stations on top of the 600 in London.

The original sub-surface tube lines were built not intentionally as metro services but long-distance commuter and intercity services to beyond Central London (no terminals could be built in Central London, hence why all 13 ring it and/or are on the border). The Metropolitan line which was the world's first metro was originally aimed to become the London-leg of a long distance route connecting the northern cities of England with Paris via a Victorian-era Channel Tunnel. It would be possible to resort back to the original services, but would probably be inefficient due to the high traffic loads.

The present RER-type service: Thameslink which runs high-frequency services from Bedford in the north to Brighton in the south; is at present being expanded to enable 24tph (each train with 12 carriages) through the central section providing a very high metro-grade capacity. It will soon be joined by Crossrail and Crossrail 2 design work has begun.

I would however state that the Parisian system is different to the London system for two reasons. The first is that the Paris Metro is more akin to a heavy rail based tram/bus system due to the station congestion which reduces its efficient coverage and ease of accessing other areas. The second is the RER is a lot more like the Tube network in spread and coverage. Both share terminal systems as well, National Rail in London, Transilien in Paris.

I have no idea what projects are going up in West Chelsea, and you are probably right that London doesn't have a single comparable area...but then while New York goes by a fixed orderly grid, London is organic and free.

For instance; there is Zaha Hadid's Aquatic Centre, the 2012 Olympic Stadium, Velodrome and a Central Park sized park in Stratford.

In the City you have the Bishopsgate Tower (Helter Skelter'), 122 Leadenhall (Cheese Grater), 20 Fenchurch Street (Walkie Talkie) and Walbrook Square (Darth Vader).

Southwark will be home to the Shard aka London Bridge Tower, the extension to the Tate Modern and Strata which resembles a futuristic shaver.

The King's Cross Rail lands will be redeveloped over the coming years incorporating former Victoria-era railway sheds, including disused gas boilers into a entirely new quarter for London.

Battersea will be completely different what with the 300m eco-chimney and vast tent to provide a massive eco-friendly settlement that will incorporate the art-deco power station into a multi-use structure.

Another power station: Lot's Road is also being redeveloped at present

London St Pancras was recently given a new lease of life, but next-door London King's Cross is being upgraded. London Bridge, London Victoria, London Waterloo, and London Euston are also all due to be given massive overhauls including new piazzas and expanded concourses. Following on from the architect-unique stations of the Jubilee Line, Crossrail and Thameslink will be given the same duty. The Crossrail station at Canary Wharf will be built into the dock, while the new Blackfriars station on the Thameslink route will span the Thames with entrances on either bank.

Across London, the idea of 'merging' traffic with pedestrians is also gaining momentum due to its benefits to safety and pedestrian benefits. The new cacoon at the Darwin Centre is getting its finishing touches.

Croydon has several interesting developments such as the crystaline mesh towers next door to East Croydon station, there is the Whitgift Centre Redevelopment

Will Alsop has two crazy but different tower projects in London, one in Putney and a seriously neon crazy tower due north of the Square Mile.

Over towards Heathrow you have the massive Heathrow East project, as well as the first trully PRT system and further towards London the Great West Quarter and other former Art-Deco factories such as the old Gillette HQ being renovated into modern work and living spaces.

I could go on and I am giving a very brief summary, but London is a city that takes the scatter gun approach to development. If you would like to get a more in-depth understanding of London I suggest you visit this thread: http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6580&page=84

[Alonzo-ny]

But Im never ever going to get involved in such a damn awful pissing contest.


Funny you just involved yourself. Luckily no one takes you seriously tenenbaum. Every post you make is a damn awful pissing contest.

[futurecity]

Thank you for the update on London Nick -- the list is impressive, and cross rail looks good.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

Funny you just involved yourself. Luckily no one takes you seriously tenenbaum. Every post you make is a damn awful pissing contest.

You need to read my posts more carefully.

I dont really care about New York v London debates, but I am interested in "life in London".

If 1 in 10 people from England are living overseas, I guess it makes it even more interesting. What are the figures from the Phillipines? Mexico? Are that many natives leaving their home country?

There are a lot of other cities to compare. I would have thought New York v Miami is just as relevant as New York v London, but thats not the topic.

And since we are talking about not just the architecture, but living in London I read today this reader contribution which arose in response to an article about the exclusivity tag often given to Oxford and Cambridge(from The Guardian Unlimited - Comment is Free)

[The] snide insinuation that by the heavily taxpayer-subsidised universities ( despite the barefaced lying in denying this, nothing new in toffs and toff-leaches lying, it's what they're good at ) taking in med students from the more plebian quarters, general health risk to the public would increase. It is this type of despicable, deliberately- dishonest snobbery that makes me feel the best solution would be to burn the fu*king places down, and then to burn down the manorial homes ( also in effect stolen from the common people ) of the scoffing toffs and to finish off with the palaces and parliament; none of which would be missed for long, if at all ! The toff quacks that come out of your fancy universities may have proved satsfactorily to examiners that they know how to practice medicine, but they come out demonstrably to make money and be status admired, they do not serve the people and in fact are often the cause of more suffering than they relieve. I could guarantee hiring in better doctors from oversea and channel, for cheaper than your subsidised toff quacks. It's another toff supporting industry you are sounding the rallying cry for. I'd rather be treated by a poor woman's son or daughter who went into medicine to serve, than a gloating toff's offscum that gloats over the power they have to carry out the perfect form of bullying and needling of the lower orders, who they may even kill off without risk of being pursued ,since their investigators are part of the old, self-serving and self-preserving family. A sicker system than the medical profession in this craven and scum-ruled isle you would battle to find, even among the political boglands. What I would not want, is to see ordinary-people med students being corrupted by such filth as the hand-me- down-a-profession offscum of the present quacks. ( Is the ability to be a good doctor hereditary ? Really ? Where are the studies ? A handy little lie ! ). Let the doctors of the future, unlike those of the present, honour the Hippocratic oath ( rather than the toffquacks hypocritical oath) and let them not be tainted by the rich c***s. i.e. let Oxbridge be entirely self-supporting- ZERO tax payers support, or burn the entrenchers of class injustice down. We can't afford the rich any more ! Get lost ! Doctors started out as butchers, became useful public-service professionals and have gone back to being butchers; somewhere down the line the class they belonged to changed as the conditions got better and money went up. No surprise that medicine is become just a toff industry and toffs don't serve the servants now, do they ?

There are many facets to living in one place or another.

I happen to be interested in all of them.

[Alonzo-ny]

We all know you hate London and for some reason the UK but I have no idea who you are trying to sell this idea of how bad it is too. You make it impossible to have a real discussion about any of these things which Im sure many of us would care to discuss.

[nick-taylor]

You need to read my posts more carefully.

I dont really care about New York v London debates, but I am interested in "life in London".

If 1 in 10 people from England are living overseas, I guess it makes it even more interesting. What are the figures from the Phillipines? Mexico? Are that many natives leaving their home country?

There are a lot of other cities to compare. I would have thought New York v Miami is just as relevant as New York v London, but thats not the topic.

And since we are talking about not just the architecture, but living in London I read today this reader contribution which arose in response to an article about the exclusivity tag often given to Oxford and Cambridge(from The Guardian Unlimited - Comment is Free)

[The] snide insinuation that by the heavily taxpayer-subsidised universities ( despite the barefaced lying in denying this, nothing new in toffs and toff-leaches lying, it's what they're good at ) taking in med students from the more plebian quarters, general health risk to the public would increase. It is this type of despicable, deliberately- dishonest snobbery that makes me feel the best solution would be to burn the fu*king places down, and then to burn down the manorial homes ( also in effect stolen from the common people ) of the scoffing toffs and to finish off with the palaces and parliament; none of which would be missed for long, if at all ! The toff quacks that come out of your fancy universities may have proved satsfactorily to examiners that they know how to practice medicine, but they come out demonstrably to make money and be status admired, they do not serve the people and in fact are often the cause of more suffering than they relieve. I could guarantee hiring in better doctors from oversea and channel, for cheaper than your subsidised toff quacks. It's another toff supporting industry you are sounding the rallying cry for. I'd rather be treated by a poor woman's son or daughter who went into medicine to serve, than a gloating toff's offscum that gloats over the power they have to carry out the perfect form of bullying and needling of the lower orders, who they may even kill off without risk of being pursued ,since their investigators are part of the old, self-serving and self-preserving family. A sicker system than the medical profession in this craven and scum-ruled isle you would battle to find, even among the political boglands. What I would not want, is to see ordinary-people med students being corrupted by such filth as the hand-me- down-a-profession offscum of the present quacks. ( Is the ability to be a good doctor hereditary ? Really ? Where are the studies ? A handy little lie ! ). Let the doctors of the future, unlike those of the present, honour the Hippocratic oath ( rather than the toffquacks hypocritical oath) and let them not be tainted by the rich c***s. i.e. let Oxbridge be entirely self-supporting- ZERO tax payers support, or burn the entrenchers of class injustice down. We can't afford the rich any more ! Get lost ! Doctors started out as butchers, became useful public-service professionals and have gone back to being butchers; somewhere down the line the class they belonged to changed as the conditions got better and money went up. No surprise that medicine is become just a toff industry and toffs don't serve the servants now, do they ?

There are many facets to living in one place or another.

I happen to be interested in all of them.Probably because along with the Dutch, Brits are the most travelled nationals around, be it retiring, eg Spain (the Florida in relation to the UK for retirement), owning numerous second homes (eg France due to Eurostar and LCC's), taking gap year trips around the world to help people (Africa, etc...), or generally taking more adventurous trips than Disneyland or the Grand Canyon.

A reason why the figure for the US isn't comparable to that of England/the UK is probably because most Americans can't leave - isn't the figure for the number of US inhabitants without a passport around 80%? A shockingly high figure, when for comparison only 10-20% of Brits don't have one.

I shall be off to the interior of China later this year for a lengthy trip, but meanwhile, you can go here (http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/asylum/claimingasylum/howtoclaim/)

[Fabrizio]

Oh those British tourists... here in Italy they are mostly unwelcome because of the scenes they create... simply unable to live well.

A report from the NYTimes:

Some Britons Too Unruly for Resorts in Europe


By SARAH LYALL
Published: August 23, 2008

MALIA, Greece — Even in a sea of tourists, it is easy to spot the Britons here on the northeast coast of Crete, and not just from the telltale pallor of their sun-deprived northern skin. British tourists have caused havoc at the Malia resort.

They are the ones, the locals say, who are carousing, brawling and getting violently sick. They are the ones crowding into health clinics seeking morning-after pills and help for sexually transmitted diseases. They are the ones who seem to have one vacation plan: drinking themselves into oblivion.

“They scream, they sing, they fall down, they take their clothes off, they cross-dress, they vomit,” Malia’s mayor, Konstantinos Lagoudakis, said in an interview. “It is only the British people — not the Germans or the French.”

Malia is the latest and currently most notorious in a long list of European resorts full of young British tourists on packaged tours offering cheap alcohol and a license to behave badly. In Magaluf and Ibiza, Spain; in Ayia Napa, Cyprus; and in the Greek resorts of Faliraki, Kavos and Laganas as well as Malia, the story is the same: They come, they drink, they wreak havoc.

“The government of Britain has to do something,” Mr. Lagoudakis said. “These people are giving a bad name to their country.”

They are also hurting themselves in the process. A recent report published by the British Foreign Office, “British Behavior Abroad,” noted that in a 12-month period in 2006 and 2007, 602 Britons were hospitalized and 28 raped in Greece, and that 1,591 died in Spain and 2,032 were arrested there.

The report did not distinguish between medical cases and arrests associated with drunkenness and those that had nothing to do with it. But it did say that “many arrests are due to behavior caused by excessive drinking.”

So it would seem. Reports of scandalous incidents rumble on regularly here and elsewhere, helping to cement Britain’s reputation as the largest exporter of inebriated hooligans in Europe.

Earlier this summer, flying home to Manchester from the Greek island of Kos, a pair of drunken women yelling “I need some fresh air” attacked the flight attendants with a vodka bottle and tried to wrestle the airplane’s emergency door open at 30,000 feet. The plane diverted hastily to Frankfurt, and the women were arrested.

In Laganas, on the Greek island of Zakinthos, where a teenager from Sheffield died after a drinking binge this summer, more than a dozen British women were charged in July with prostitution after taking part, the authorities said, in an alfresco oral sex contest.

More alarmingly, a 20-year-old British tourist partied with her sister and a friend into the early hours in Malia also in July, then returned to her hotel room and — although she had denied being pregnant — gave birth. Her companions say they returned later to find the baby dead; she has been charged with infanticide.

And in Dubai, also this summer, a British man and woman who met during a drinking bout were arrested and charged with having sex on a beach, after repeatedly shouting abuse at a police officer who ordered them to stop.

All of which leads to a natural question: Why?

“I think that in their country, they are like prisoners and they want to feel free,” said Niki Pirovolaki, who works in a bakery on Malia’s main street and often encounters addled Britons heading back to their hotels — “if they can remember where they are staying,” she said.

David Familton, a Briton who works in a club here, said that it was a question of emotional comfort. “It’s because of British culture — no one can relax, so they become inebriated to be the people they want to be,” he said.

Worried about the increase in crimes and accidents afflicting drunken tourists, the British consulate in Athens has begun several campaigns, using posters, beach balls and coasters with snappy slogans, to encourage young visitors to drink responsibly.

“When things do go wrong, they go wrong in quite a big way,” said Alison Beckett, the director of consular services. “What we’re trying to do here is reduce some of these avoidable accidents where they have so much to drink that they fall off balconies and are either killed or need huge operations.”

As much as they depend on the tourists’ money, the resorts are balking at their behavior. Last year, shopkeepers, residents and hotel owners in Malia held an angry anti-British demonstration. Now, 20 officers patrol the notorious 1,000-foot-long strip of bars and clubs catering to tourists in the center of town, keeping the peace, breaking up fights and making arrests.

Local officials say the blame lies not just with the tourists themselves, but also with the operators of package tours promising drinking-and-partying vacations, and clubs offering industrial-strength alcohol at rock-bottom prices. For about $50 in Malia, tourists can go on unlimited-drinking pub crawls.

“British tour operators present them with these packages that promise a wild holiday in Malia,” said Brig. Fotis Georgopoulos, the police chief of Iraklion, which takes in Malia. “This predisposes them. They are automatically put into a wild and lawless mind-set that is beyond them.”

On the strip late one recent night, downtown Malia felt like a nonrainy version of downtown Birmingham, as young Britons in skimpy clothes moved in herds from bar to bar, drinking, boasting and shouting as they went.

The tourists confessed to drinking a lot. One 21-year-old man from Essex, for instance, said that his consumption the night before had been five beers; six specialty drinks combined with Baileys, tequila, absinthe, ouzo, vodka, gin and orange juice; five vodka and lime drinks; and then five cans of Stella Artois, all of which, he said, emboldened him to pick up a woman to spend the night with. But they said that the lurid stories are media exaggerations.

“I’ve never seen anyone get stabbed the whole time I’ve been here,” said Chris Robinson, 21, speaking outside the Loft bar, which had a special deal: four drinks and two shots for $8.

Similarly, Eleanor Seaver, 20, said that she had been in Malia for two months, working in a club, and that she had never once been in a fight. On the contrary, she said, people are comradely and helpful. “If there’s a girl being sick in the streets, you see people helping her out,” she said. “We watch out for each other here.”

Paul Fisher, a 49-year-old Welshman who runs a bar and a motorbike-rental shop, said the stories both depressed the tourist trade and, perversely, drew the sort of visitors for whom drunken anarchy is an attractive prospect.

“We don’t like you lot coming in and ruining the place,” Mr. Fisher said, referring to reporters. He opened a drawer and produced a copy of the celebrity magazine Closer. An article inside featured a young female British tourist’s “booze-fueled orgy with four men” in Malia.

Things like that give Malia a bad name, Mr. Fisher said. “This is wrong and it’s overexaggerated,” he said.

On the other hand, he conceded, “for 10 weeks, this place is littered with kids being sick and unconscious in the streets.”

Just then, several young men who had the pale, queasy look that suggested the end of hangovers not yet muted by new infusions of alcohol, passed by, and Mr. Fisher asked them why they drank so much, night after night.

“It’s what everyone wants to do,” one young man said.

His friend said: “We have stressful jobs, and we don’t get much time off, and we like to enjoy ourselves and have a good laugh. And we love a bargain.”

[Fabrizio]

Brits Behaving Badly
By Sophie Grove | NEWSWEEK
Published Sep 6, 2008

A typical evening on the Greek isle of Zakynthos—one of Europe's hot spots for British tourists—is a modern-day bacchanal: drunken fights are common, as is the sight of revelers dashing naked from bar to bar. Move over, Americans. Brits are the new tourists that the rest of the Continent loves to hate. The trouble has been brewing for years, but now there's a backlash as crime soars: as of August, Greek police show a record number of 41 reported rapes of U.K. women. On Zakynthos alone, nine British ladies were arrested on charges of prostitution during an open-air oral-sex contest this July, followed by the death of a 17-year-old British boy outside a popular nightclub. In Spain, arrests of U.K. nationals rose 32 percent this year to 2,032 incarcerations.

The British government is trying to contain the problem, sending ambassadors to do damage control and launching campaigns to curb bad behavior. But it may be difficult to change tourists' ways: the U.K. is one of the heaviest-drinking countries in Europe, and young Brits have become accustomed to "cut-price flights to countries that openly advertise cheap alcohol," says Martin Plant, author of "Binge Britain."

While many Brits couldn't care less about how the Greeks see them, "countries have realized that they don't have to put up with this," says British social scientist Simon Anholt. As such, Brits may find themselves shut out of resorts if they don't soon sober up.

---

[nick-taylor]

It is unfortunate that we do indeed live in a world where there are boozy topless Brits and hooligan corrupt Italians. Oh well, move on we must!


I am however suprised by the figure for number of Brits arrested in Spain; I would have thought it would have been far higher, considering there are something like at least a million Brits there at any one time.

[Fabrizio]

The BBC (this article is from 2002): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2137729.stm


Top tourists
1st Germans
2nd Americans
3rd Japanese
4th Italians
5th = French, Norwegians, Swedes

Worst tourists
17th = Argentines, New Zealanders, Czechs, Finns
21st Indians
22nd = Irish, Israelis
24th British

[nick-taylor]

The BBC (this article is from 2002): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2137729.stm

Top tourists
1st Germans
2nd Americans
3rd Japanese
4th Italians
5th = French, Norwegians, Swedes

Worst tourists
17th = Argentines, New Zealanders, Czechs, Finns
21st Indians
22nd = Irish, Israelis
24th BritishOh no a list - panic! No wonder the Italians are high up; they're really there under witness protection schemes - any noise and bang the Mafioso will be down on them like the tower of Piza's over-hang.

Least Corrupt
Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Iceland, Netherlands,.....followed by
12th - UK

Corrupt
Chile, Slovenia, Qatar, Dominica, Botswana, Hungary,.... followed by
41st - Italy


Be careful Fabby, look at Uncle Giuseppe the wrong way (not to say that you're a homophobe or that Uncle Giuseppe is gay) and you'll end up in Mamma's Bolognese Sauce to be served up for Presidente Berlusconi!

[Fabrizio]

Gee...I didn't know we would suddenly be shifting the discussion to corruption. LOL. Sorry that those articles stung you so!

You can be assured: you will never, but never, find an Italian that will dispute that we are a corrupt people and country.... always been, always will be. What else is new?

But wow, more corrupt than Chile, Qatar, Dominica, Botswana... (this would make any Italian proud).... it must be one reason why we're ranked among the world's top tourist desitinations. I guess corruption does have it's allure...

In the meantime Nicky:

Top tourists
1st Germans
2nd Americans
3rd Japanese
4th Italians
5th = French, Norwegians, Swedes

Worst tourists
17th = Argentines, New Zealanders, Czechs, Finns
21st Indians
22nd = Irish, Israelis
24th British


--

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

I didnt realize in my last post that this is the world architecture forum.

Still, I would think that any matter relating to the use of architecture by the people of these cities is directly relevant (my posts skirted around this issue).

My own impression of London is the lack of friendliness of certain areas usually known as "the City".

Just how much access do people have to the Gherkin and similarly high profile buildings, say like they do to the Chrysler Building, ESB, or the the RC and RP?

[londonlawyer]

Tons of people in the City who makes loads of money are Essex boys who left school at 18 and are about as couth as your average resident of Canarsie. (Sorry for the stereotype.) Britain is far more egalitarian than people think.

[nick-taylor]

Gee...I didn't know we would suddenly be shifting the discussion to corruption. LOL. Sorry that those articles stung you so!

You can be assured: you will never, but never, find an Italian that will dispute that we are a corrupt people and country.... always been, always will be. What else is new?

But wow, more corrupt than Chile, Qatar, Dominica, Botswana... (this would make any Italian proud).... it must be one reason why we're ranked among the world's top tourist desitinations. I guess corruption does have it's allure...

In the meantime Nicky:

Top tourists
1st Germans
2nd Americans
3rd Japanese
4th Italians
5th = French, Norwegians, Swedes

Worst tourists
17th = Argentines, New Zealanders, Czechs, Finns
21st Indians
22nd = Irish, Israelis
24th British

--Stung, haven't heard that word in a long time; not another mafioso raid Fabby (not a part of the Roma folk are you - heard that Italy has taken a bad turn to that minority), but I hope Luigi and Alvise managed to get out of the bolognese factory after your admission - rather not want them to become part of the recipe!

Pity that your own Presidente isn't as honest as you! Sort him out Fabby with some noodle derivative!

[Fabrizio]

You WISH you had had a Pres like ours... fresh from the tanning bed, legs waxed and forehead nicely Botoxed.

In the meantime Nicky:

Top tourists
1st Germans
2nd Americans
3rd Japanese
4th Italians
5th = French, Norwegians, Swedes

Worst tourists
17th = Argentines, New Zealanders, Czechs, Finns
21st Indians
22nd = Irish, Israelis
24th British


---------------

Arrests Up Among British Tourists Traveling Abroad
http://information.travel.aol.com/article/news-feeds/_a/arrests-up-among-british-tourists/20080813104109990001

---------------

Greece most dangerous place in the world for British women after 41 are raped this year

"The men responsible were mainly drunken British men..."

"Today, they are on the bottom of the scale of welcomed tourists and we in the Mediterranean would certainly much prefer not to have their money or even pay them to go somewhere else..."

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23538027-details/Greece+most+dangerous+place+in+the+world+for+Briti sh+women+after+41+are+raped+this+year/article.do

-------

[nick-taylor]

You WISH you had had a Pres like ours... fresh from the tanning bed, legs waxed and forehead nicely Botoxed.

In the meantime Nicky:

Top tourists
1st Germans
2nd Americans
3rd Japanese
4th Italians
5th = French, Norwegians, Swedes

Worst tourists
17th = Argentines, New Zealanders, Czechs, Finns
21st Indians
22nd = Irish, Israelis
24th British


---------------

Arrests Up Among British Tourists Traveling Abroad
http://information.travel.aol.com/article/news-feeds/_a/arrests-up-among-british-tourists/20080813104109990001

---------------

Greece most dangerous place in the world for British women after 41 are raped this year

"The men responsible were mainly drunken British men..."

"Today, they are on the bottom of the scale of welcomed tourists and we in the Mediterranean would certainly much prefer not to have their money or even pay them to go somewhere else..."

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23538027-details/Greece+most+dangerous+place+in+the+world+for+Briti sh+women+after+41+are+raped+this+year/article.do

-------Unfortunately my knowledge of Pres is rather light. Perhaps you are a colleague of Alberto Martini (Chair of the Research Committee at the Paediatric Rheumatology European Society - PRES) who could shed some light on this matter. I believe his field of study is outside that of the female beautician sector.

Weren't you in Greece recently? Not diversifying away from corruption and hooliganism are you now Fabby?

[Fabrizio]

^ See what I mean, folks? They drink and they write jibberish.... he's probably head down on the keyboard.

----

[nick-taylor]

^ See what I mean, folks? They drink and they write jibberish.... he's probably head down on the keyboard.

----We drink and write jibberish, just a pity that you won't be around to share it with us Brits and the delightful Americans for much longer.

Giuseppe, clearly hasn't got the groove no more.... :rolleyes:

That or clearly the Mafioso is getting away with too much!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Italy-demography.png/400px-Italy-demography.png

[Fabrizio]

The above graph illustrates the number of Brits who've fallen off of balconies during holiday. Note how he cleverly excludes the last 5 years.

[Alonzo-ny]

The brits refered to are the dregs of society that go on cheap holidays to get pissed. The general population isnt like that.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Still waiting for nick-taylor to chime in. This thread just isn't official until he christens it. ;)This is all your fault.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

The brits refered to are the dregs of society that go on cheap holidays to get pissed. The general population isnt like that.

Right. They are in a different class.

"Oi wouldn't be seen dead wif those people"

[nick-taylor]

The above graph illustrates the number of Brits who've fallen off of balconies during holiday. Note how he cleverly excludes the last 5 years.Fallen off or pushed off by Italians.....




Right. They are in a different class.

"Oi wouldn't be seen dead wif those people"I see you are taking the British naturalisation process quite seriously. You'll be one of us soon enough!

[Fabrizio]

Germans told how to avoid British tourists

"Germany's biggest-selling newspaper has printed a guide to help readers going abroad to avoid British tourists."

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/germans-told-how-to-avoid-british-tourists-838885.html

[nick-taylor]

Germans told how to avoid British tourists

"Germany's biggest-selling newspaper has printed a guide to help readers going abroad to avoid British tourists."

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/germans-told-how-to-avoid-british-tourists-838885.htmlIndeed, the battle for sunchairs between Britain and Germany is the longest unresolved conflict to date.

It has also taken its toll, the French were left waving the white flag early on, while the Italians were cleaning the sun chairs for their Germany masters. The Spanish were to busy bickering amongst themselves, and the Americans and Russians were curious but stayed on the sides waiting to see who would decimate each other enough to allow them to claim title to the sun chairs.

Shocking affairs.

[Mescaline]

Where is the guide to assist British people in avoiding British tourists?

[meesalikeu]

i've spent time in london on visits recently and so will chime in.

in summary....ny'ers are spoiled. i liked london just fine, but fuggedaboudit. transit in nyc is head and shoulders better, so is food, services, arts, retail, multiculturalism, gregariousness, architectural variety, etc., etc.

as dickens observed in his visit to america, when they finally got into nyc from london a man said something like, "i'm so glad to be back in the old town i could kiss a lamppost!" that sentiment holds true today too!

the new 'scrapers? i'm interested, but so far rather odd at best & undistinguished. the la defense-ish canary wharf? hmm, how can i put that place in american terms? dayton, oh w/ the addition of lightrail transit.

for the american side this should be a london vs dc thread instead. looking broadly over london it looks more like dc than nyc, except of course even more sprawling and yes with a handful of new towers popping up out of it here and there. it even has more of a dc vibe than an energetic and hustle-bustlely nyc vibe. my two cents/pence.

[zupermaus]

^seriously, where on earth did you visit in London?? London the same vibe as DC? No way, that's verging on libelous mate ;).

That's a 2000 year old city of 10 million, with 30,000 protected buildings, 550 international banking HQs, 300 art galleries, 300 museums, 120 theatres, 4000 churches and 8000 bars (8x that of NYC) - with 500,000 clubbers a night, that happens to be the worlds most visited and most multicultural major city, speaking 340 languages (compared to NYC's 170), and that sees in 140 million air passengers yearly.

Its also the global centre of the arts, finance, entertainment and the largest transport hub, with the worlds largest metro, bus system and air hub from its 5 international airports and 2 national ones. It is 45% of immediate non English ancestry and over 35% foreign born, yet has zero racial segregation residentially.

As for architectural diversity, I don't think any city can compare with millennias of history on the same street, on every street, except Istanbul. And as for being quiet - I can't seriously think you must have entered the centre.

[Fabrizio]

I think comparing London to Washington DC is a much fairer comparison. And while London can't compare to NY, I think it does have an edge over Washington.

At least until the inauguration.

[Alonzo-ny]

The only places worse than DC are in the US.

[zupermaus]

So while London does actually beat NYC in global trade, culture, arts, history, diversity, entertainment, visitor numbers, and connections etc - it can't compare to NYC. Hmmm...

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

London just sucks.

Its expensive for no reason.

Its dangerous for no reason.

Its populated by bigots who dont care a fig about their fellow countrymen. There is a real social divide.

And thats why people have been leaving the place for centuries.

The lucky ones got to New York. Or Miami.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

So while London does actually beat NYC in global trade, culture, arts, history, diversity, entertainment, visitor numbers, and connections etc - it can't compare to NYC. Hmmm...

Yes, London wins the competition for a proud and unflinching display of the wholesale theft of the roof of the Parthenon.

There are more theatres in the state of Nebraska than in the city of London.

Zuper, get over it. Its not a pissing contest. London just sucks Harry Balls!

[ASchwarz]

^seriously, where on earth did you visit in London?? London the same vibe as DC? No way, that's verging on libelous mate ;).

I would agree, but your commentary is equally silly.


That's a 2000 year old city of 10 million, with 30,000 protected buildings, 550 international banking HQs, 300 art galleries, 300 museums, 120 theatres, 4000 churches and 8000 bars (8x that of NYC) - with 500,000 clubbers a night, that happens to be the worlds most visited and most multicultural major city, speaking 340 languages (compared to NYC's 170), and that sees in 140 million air passengers yearly.

This is almost 100% BS. How on earth did you get an NYC bar count?? There's no such thing! There would be no way to get this info. How on earth did you get an NYC languages spoken count?? Again, there's no such thing! The U.S. Census doesn't even ask this.
If anything, there would be about the same number of bars, or more in NYC. NYC is a much larger metro and is wealthier, so I can't imagine London would have 8 times the bars of a larger and wealthier city.

As for languages, both cities are super-diverse, so I can't imagine one would have far more languages spoken than the other. If I had to guess, NYC would have more languages spoken, because, unlike London, we have tons of Indios from Latin America. Mexico alone has over 200 languages spoken, and almost all our Mexican immigrants are rural Indios, so right there you have more than the claimed 170 languages for NYC.

As for major languages, Please tell me ONE major language that would be spoken in London and not in New York? There is no ethncity in London that is not also in NY.


Its also the global centre of the arts, finance, entertainment and the largest transport hub, with the worlds largest metro, bus system and air hub from its 5 international airports and 2 national ones. It is 45% of immediate non English ancestry and over 35% foreign born, yet has zero racial segregation residentially.

It's the global centee of none of these things.

It's A global center, yes, but not THE global center of any.

Finance would be NYC, entertainment would be NYC or LA, transport would probably be Tokyo. London isn't really a big transport hub at all except for airlines, because (as I would hope you know) it's on an an island and not exactly connected by too many roads to anything else. The more centrailized road and rail hubs on the Contienent are larger.

The world's largest metro is Tokyo. NYC also has a larger metro than London.

The world's largest bus system is Sao Paulo, then Mexico City. London's bus system is a joke comparably (as is basically every other system on earth that is not Sao Paulo or Mexico City).

It IS the world's largest air hub, so you got one thing right, but there are only three major airports, not seven.

It has TONS of segregation. This claim is hilarious, as if South and East London were ethnically indistinguishable from Mayfair and Kensington...


As for architectural diversity, I don't think any city can compare with millennias of history on the same street, on every street, except Istanbul.

London DOES have great architectural diversity. Probably not the best on earth, but yes, very, very good.

As for history, London IS very impressive compared to the U.S. and much of the world, of course, but is not particularly impressive for European standards. Rome (and most other major Italian cities) have much more impressive history.


And as for being quiet - I can't seriously think you must have entered the centre.

True, London isn't quiet, BUT it's quiet compared to other first-tier cities like NYC, Paris, Tokyo, etc. Compared to these city centers, Central London is positively sleepy, though MUCH better than DC.

[Alonzo-ny]

I would agree somewhat with the bar thing. When I first moved to NY and friends visited we would walk around for ages to find bars and ended up finding one crappy one. Unless you know specific areas where bars are (LES, Meatpacking, etc) then you dont have a chance. I dont know if London actually has much more or if it just seems that way but its always been much easier for me to find a bar in London.

The languages point cant really be proven.

As for everything else you just proved how NY isnt the world centre of anything either except finance, which is something that is well disputed now with many articles published about how london has taken over now, so you cant positively claim that.

Its stupid to claim London is sleepy compared to NY I dont get that statement at all. Saying Paris is first tier and London isnt is also a really idiotic statement.

The point is now the comparison has descended into nit-picking. They are both really close in terms of the things they are compared to each other in but they have slight differences that give them their own personalities and therefore its all down to which of those personalities you prefer. Neither is much better than the other.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

Every city is quiet compared to Tokyo.

Shinjuku + Ikebukuro + Shibuya probably has more people out and about at 12 pm than NY, Miami and LA put together at that time.

London doesnt even come close.

In other interesting news

Nikon v Canon - Nikon Wins

Lion v Tiger - Lion Wins

Apple v PC - PC wins

[zupermaus]

1. New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/nyregion/23translate.html:

"There are an estimated 170 foreign languages spoken in New York City"

wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City

New York State Office of the State Comptroller (06-2006)
"About 170 languages are spoken in the city.[1]"

2. London Underground: 408km

NYC Subway 369km

Tokyo Subway + Tokyo Toei Subway 312.4 (If you include overground train Tokyo has the worlds largest rapid transport system).

3. London is residentially non segregated, the largest ethnic majority is 75% South Asian in the Chalvey area of Slough (and even then that's made up of disparate communities of Sikhs, Pakistanis, Indians and Bangladeshis). There are many ethnic High Streets catering for shoppers and workers, (eg Brixton High St, Brick Lane, Chinatown, Peckham Rye) but no residential 'ghettoes', often to the astonishment of Londoners themselves who find these areas are still majority White - Peckham, Brixton, Tower Hamlets, New Cross. Compare that with NYC where every neighbourhood is in the upper 80% or higher of one ethnic group, sharply delineated by streets where you can cross from a 88% Hispanic side to a 95% White side. According to the last census segregation was at levels as bad as the 1960s, and worsening.


...and as for London being quiet??? All I can say is you need to visit. The centre sees in densities of up to 400,000 per sq. mile by day (West End and The City), falling dramatically by night - although the entertainment districts such as Soho, according to the police, see in 500,000 people passing through a night rising to 1 million on weekends.

[Bronxbombers]

I have never been to England. I have been to New York City several times. I love New York City. In my opinion London is OK.

[meesalikeu]

^seriously, where on earth did you visit in London?? London the same vibe as DC? No way, that's verging on libelous mate ;).

That's a 2000 year old city of 10 million, with 30,000 protected buildings, 550 international banking HQs, 300 art galleries, 300 museums, 120 theatres, 4000 churches and 8000 bars (8x that of NYC) - with 500,000 clubbers a night, that happens to be the worlds most visited and most multicultural major city, speaking 340 languages (compared to NYC's 170), and that sees in 140 million air passengers yearly.

Its also the global centre of the arts, finance, entertainment and the largest transport hub, with the worlds largest metro, bus system and air hub from its 5 international airports and 2 national ones. It is 45% of immediate non English ancestry and over 35% foreign born, yet has zero racial segregation residentially.

As for architectural diversity, I don't think any city can compare with millennias of history on the same street, on every street, except Istanbul. And as for being quiet - I can't seriously think you must have entered the centre.

err, who wrote that stuff and where were they published? was it someone and someplace in, oh, i dk, england maybe? :rolleyes:

i mean for example only 1000 bars in all of nyc, eh? come on.

wait. millennias of architectural history on the same street? lol! where was that? most prevalent is post-war schlock, but the oldest and generally grandest structures are victorian, even including most of the re-imagined "tower of."

and as for diversity on the street, have you ever walked ny's streets? visually london is nowhere near ny's diversity. silliness.
here's the real london demographic deal:

In the 2001 census (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Census_2001), 71.15% of these seven and a half million people classed their ethnic group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group) as white (classified as White British (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom) (59.79%), White Irish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_people) (3.07%) or "Other White" (8.29%)), 12.09% as Indian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India) (mainly Punjabi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_people), Hindi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi) & Gujarati (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujarati)), Pakistani (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan), Bangladeshi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh) (Bengali (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali)), Tamils (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamils) (mostly Sri Lankan Tamil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Tamil) along with a significant number of Indian Tamil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Tamil) and Malaysian Tamil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Malaysian) and "Other Asian" (mostly Arab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab) and other South Asian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asian) ethnicities), 10.91% as Black (5.28% as Black African (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa), 4.79% as Black Caribbean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean), 0.84% as "Other Black"), 3.15% as mixed race, 1.12% as Chinese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Chinese) and 1.58% as other (mostly Filipino (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines), Japanese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan), and Vietnamese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam)). The Irish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_people) are the largest foreign-born group in London (numbering approximately 200,000).


nice try tho, you are right up there with the gung-ho chicagoans! :D

[nick-taylor]

I would agree, but your commentary is equally silly.

This is almost 100% BS. How on earth did you get an NYC bar count?? There's no such thing! There would be no way to get this info. How on earth did you get an NYC languages spoken count?? Again, there's no such thing! The U.S. Census doesn't even ask this.
If anything, there would be about the same number of bars, or more in NYC. NYC is a much larger metro and is wealthier, so I can't imagine London would have 8 times the bars of a larger and wealthier city.

As for languages, both cities are super-diverse, so I can't imagine one would have far more languages spoken than the other. If I had to guess, NYC would have more languages spoken, because, unlike London, we have tons of Indios from Latin America. Mexico alone has over 200 languages spoken, and almost all our Mexican immigrants are rural Indios, so right there you have more than the claimed 170 languages for NYC.

As for major languages, Please tell me ONE major language that would be spoken in London and not in New York? There is no ethncity in London that is not also in NY.

It's the global centee of none of these things.

It's A global center, yes, but not THE global center of any.

Finance would be NYC, entertainment would be NYC or LA, transport would probably be Tokyo. London isn't really a big transport hub at all except for airlines, because (as I would hope you know) it's on an an island and not exactly connected by too many roads to anything else. The more centrailized road and rail hubs on the Contienent are larger.

The world's largest metro is Tokyo. NYC also has a larger metro than London.

The world's largest bus system is Sao Paulo, then Mexico City. London's bus system is a joke comparably (as is basically every other system on earth that is not Sao Paulo or Mexico City).

It IS the world's largest air hub, so you got one thing right, but there are only three major airports, not seven.

It has TONS of segregation. This claim is hilarious, as if South and East London were ethnically indistinguishable from Mayfair and Kensington...

London DOES have great architectural diversity. Probably not the best on earth, but yes, very, very good.

As for history, London IS very impressive compared to the U.S. and much of the world, of course, but is not particularly impressive for European standards. Rome (and most other major Italian cities) have much more impressive history.


True, London isn't quiet, BUT it's quiet compared to other first-tier cities like NYC, Paris, Tokyo, etc. Compared to these city centers, Central London is positively sleepy, though MUCH better than DC.A few points...the drinking culture is far more advanced in Europe than the US full-stop. Its far easier to find drinking establishments from the capital cities, to provincial cities, and right down to villages across Europe than say America. It tends to help that there is not just greater quantity of alcoholic beverages, but far greater quantities of quality as well.

New York most likely has a larger Latin-America population, but then London most likely has a larger South Asian population. Not sure how many 'languages' there are for a culture of over 1bn...

I'm not certain how to 'define' entertainment? perhaps it is the most successful Broadway shows that started their life out in London's West End (The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Les Miserables...), or perhaps it is the wide array of films from the new Batman series, Aliens, Indiana Jones, Saving Private Ryan, Star Wars, James Bond, Harry Potter...that had primary shooting in London?

Hard to say on music as both cities have different tastes and are probably 'equal'. For concerts, London's 02 sold 1.80mn tickets over the previous reporting period compared to 1.16mn tickets for Madison Square Gardens.

One area London definately shines is sport - it will be the only city to host 3 Olympic Games come 2012, and is the only city to have 1,000,000+ seats in stadia and arenas. There are more games and tournaments happening in the city than anywhere else.

Being the largest aviation hub on the planet with more international destinations, flights and passenger volumes does make London a pretty significant transport hub. In addition, Eurostar has cornered the market for travel to Paris and Brussels with around 9.1mn journeys at the last count (for comparison the entire Amtrak network carried just over 28mn). London is also the hub for all major rail companies running across the UK, for instance the West Coast Main Line is the busiest trunk railway outside Japan.

By route km length the Tube is longer, by station count the New York Subway is larger. New York however lacks the large and extensive above ground rail networks that are found throughout London and Tokyo. In fact the National Rail lines are around double the route km length of the Tube. The NR lines also act as express services for the Tube, just like in Tokyo.

Taking in the metro area, New York is far behind London and Tokyo for route km and number of stations. Tokyo is most likely the largest rail city on the planet in terms of route km, station count and passenger volumes.

London possibly has the largest bus system in the developed western world, but Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Shanghai and Moscow have larger bus networks. I would point out however that the above cities have insignificant heavy rail networks. For comparison, the Metropolitan Line (not the longest tube line in London at 66.7km) is longer than the Sao Paulo Metro (61.3km).

London lacks the ghettos that New York was once famous for, and while there isn't a complete merger of rich and poor, the poorest areas of London are actually found next door to the richest, eg Kensington, Canary Wharf. You do get concentrations of populations of certain ethnic backgrounds as this is a natural social process, but pretty much all communities are spread around.

One thing London and DC do compare on is the fact they are both capitals with free museums and art galleries, something New York, Paris and Tokyo are lagging behind on.


@ meesalikeu - Even in cities like Rome, Paris, etc... not too many structures exist from 1,000+ years ago simply because of wars, and economic progress for redevelopment. That said I'm uncertain of what you mean by "tower of", the Tower of London? The White Tower was built in 1078 with numerous fortifications built around it in the following centuries. London has lots of historic buildings and structures going back way before the Victorians.

The Victorians did build some excellent buildings; the re-built Westminster Palace (Houses of Parliament), with the original 1097 Westminster Hall intact, London St Pancras Station and the Royal Courts of Justice. The Victorians probably built some of the best buildings to date.

The census doesn't illustrate a great picture of where people came from, and hence diversity. More or less it is an indicator of skin-colour. Going by the census I'd be classifed as 'White British', but I was born and brought up in Singapore.

[zupermaus]

...

[zupermaus]

omg the 2001 census, infamous as it was (seriously there are only a few hundred Scots and Welsh in London? a few thousand South Asians?)

1. It was notoriously undercounted (apparently not only ethnic groups but also missed out a significant proportion of the male population as a whole).

2. It didn't count the EU population, hundreds of thousands of continental Europeans who automatically have right of abode, work and travel in the UK, and have flocked to London. They aren't even counted at the borders, let alone the census.

3. It missed out on the three biggest waves of immigration in London's history - Africans arriving from West Africa and the Horn of Africa, displacing the million strong Caribbean population as the largest Black group in the country. This was the predicted largest wave yet, but was in turn replaced by...

-EU expansion in 2004 opening the doors for free right of abode for Eastern Europeans (500,000 Poles alone) and again expansion in 2006 (60,000 Romanians arrived in the first two months alone, before they stopped counting).

-an unprecedented wave from Latin America, over 100,000 Brazilians and Colombians notably.

4. The census does not count ancestry unlike US censi, if it did London would be the biggest 'Irish' city in the world, the second biggest 'French' etc. Many tend to identify themselves as 'White British' within one generation (or less), despite being of continental European, Latino or Middle Eastern descent.

2005 estimates puts London's immediate non-English ancestry at 45%, the foreign born at 35%, though growing at such a rate it is set to overtake NYC at the height of it's immigrant heyday (1890-1900 at 42%). The current generation has 2/3 of schoolchildren belonging to non native parents.

Nb. I would seriously suggest you walk the streets of London again, and not just look out for races but internationalism, and importantly how much everyone mixes too. How on earth can you think the streets pale in comparison to NYC??
Despite all the immigration, the fastest growing ethnic group is 'mixed race', and the country has the highest rates of intermarriage in the West - which outnumbers inmarriage among Blacks, continental Europeans and East Asians, and accounts for a third of South Asians. They say you'll see more mixed race couples in a day in London than a year in NYC.

[zupermaus]

This is taken from the photos of a guy who walked the streets of central London properly in 2006 - not just the tourist ghettoes and sights, but the actual residential areas too:


yes, i know this series was only supposed to last six weeks. what can i say? i've been busy. URBANPHOTO (http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/) has been relaunched with tons of new content -- take a look.

KILGORE IN EUROPE :: Photo Schedule

01 -- LONDON (Part One) (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=112220)
02 -- PARIS (Part One) (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=112435)
03 -- ROME (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=112934)
04 -- MADRID (Part One) (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=113684)
05 -- PARIS (Part Two) (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=114171)
06 -- LISBON (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=115173)
07 -- MADRID (Part Two) (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=118106)
08 -- LONDON (Part Two)
09 -- PARIS (Part Three)
10 -- BONUS! Málaga and throwaways

the photos in this series were taken by myself, except for those taken by mlle. laine, which are noted.


LONDON
(part two)


1
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/091.JPG

2
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/092.JPG

3
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/093.JPG

4
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/094.JPG

5
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/095.JPG

6
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/096.JPG

7
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/097.JPG

8
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/098.JPG

9
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/099.JPG

10
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/100.JPG

11
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/101.JPG

12
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/102.JPG

13
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/103.JPG

14
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/104.JPG

15
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/105.JPG

16
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/106.JPG

17
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/107.JPG

18
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/108.JPG

19
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/109.JPG

20
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/110.JPG

21
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/111.JPG

22
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/112.JPG

23 -- photo by laine tam
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/113.JPG

24
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/114.JPG

25
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/115.JPG

26
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/116.JPG

27
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/117.JPG

28
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/118.JPG

29
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/119.JPG

30
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/120.JPG

31
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/121.JPG

32
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/122.JPG

33
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/123.JPG

34
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/124.JPG

35
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/125.JPG

36
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/126.JPG

37
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/127.JPG

38
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/128.JPG

39
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/129.JPG

40
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/130.JPG

41
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/131.JPG

42
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/132.JPG

43
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/133.JPG

44
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/134.JPG

45 -- photo by laine tam
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/135.JPG

46 -- photo by laine tam
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/136.JPG

47
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/137.JPG

48
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/138.JPG

49
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/139.JPG

50
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/140.JPG

51
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/141.JPG

52
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/142.JPG

53
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/143.JPG

54
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/144.JPG

55
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/145.JPG

56
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/146.JPG

57 -- photo by laine tam
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/147.JPG

58
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/148.JPG

59
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/149.JPG

60
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/150.JPG

61
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/151.JPG

62
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/152.JPG

63
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/153.JPG

64
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/154.JPG

65
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/155.JPG

66
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/156.JPG

67
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/157.JPG

68
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/158.JPG

69
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/159.JPG

70
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/160.JPG

71
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/161.JPG

72
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/162.JPG

73 -- photo by laine tam
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/164.JPG

74 -- photo by laine tam
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/165.JPG

75
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/166.JPG

76
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/167.JPG

77
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/168.JPG

78
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/169.JPG

79
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/170.JPG

80
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/171.JPG

81
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/172.JPG

82
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/173.JPG

83
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/174.JPG

84
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/175.JPG

85
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/176.JPG

86
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/177.JPG

87
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/178.JPG

88
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/179.JPG

89
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/180.JPG

90
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/181.JPG

91
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/182.JPG

92
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/183.JPG

Similarly here:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=130998

[Ninjahedge]

Supermouse.....


C'mahn. Although appreciated, that picture post was a bit spammy!

All this animosity, and when I look at most of the pictures shown I am reminded a LOT of NYC and its outer boroughs.....

I think, quite honestly, that you can find more similarities between these two huge, multicultural, Anglo-Saxon majority urban hubs than differences.

I really do not give a rats patootie how many frigging bars a city has as a count of its superiority so long as I can get a good pint. :p

[Fabrizio]

Zupermaus: The thread is called New York vs London.... so why are you posting pictures of Boston?

[ablarc]

Pictures in this thread are good, discussion is witless and sophomoric.

[Ninjahedge]

Zupermaus: The thread is called New York vs London.... so why are you posting pictures of Boston?


That too! ;)

[Alonzo-ny]

These 'versus' threads never work. Everyone gets pissy.

[zupermaus]

Look I love NYC, it's just someone started saying NYC has no comparison is very much a cliche of the bombast the city is driven by. I disagree, I think London is more than comparable - the two cities are so alike, and more than they think each other. When someone says London can't compare to the ethnic mix on the streets, I post pictures of London's streets.

If you read between the lines here folks, there are many things NYC beats London on - (skyscrapers, prices, shopping, size, wealth). Just a hint...

[zupermaus]

ps, this is Boston in England. Some people might have been mistaken ;):

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pioneerfamilies/boston.jpg

[meesalikeu]

omg the 2001 census, infamous as it was (seriously there are only a few hundred Scots and Welsh in London? a few thousand South Asians?)

1. It was notoriously undercounted (apparently not only ethnic groups but also missed out a significant proportion of the male population as a whole).

2. It didn't count the EU population, hundreds of thousands of continental Europeans who automatically have right of abode, work and travel in the UK, and have flocked to London. They aren't even counted at the borders, let alone the census.

3. It missed out on the three biggest waves of immigration in London's history - Africans arriving from West Africa and the Horn of Africa, displacing the million strong Caribbean population as the largest Black group in the country. This was the predicted largest wave yet, but was in turn replaced by...

-EU expansion in 2004 opening the doors for free right of abode for Eastern Europeans (500,000 Poles alone) and again expansion in 2006 (60,000 Romanians arrived in the first two months alone, before they stopped counting).

-an unprecedented wave from Latin America, over 100,000 Brazilians and Colombians notably.

4. The census does not count ancestry unlike US censi, if it did London would be the biggest 'Irish' city in the world, the second biggest 'French' etc. Many tend to identify themselves as 'White British' within one generation (or less), despite being of continental European, Latino or Middle Eastern descent.

2005 estimates puts London's immediate non-English ancestry at 45%, the foreign born at 35%, though growing at such a rate it is set to overtake NYC at the height of it's immigrant heyday (1890-1900 at 42%). The current generation has 2/3 of schoolchildren belonging to non native parents.

Nb. I would seriously suggest you walk the streets of London again, and not just look out for races but internationalism, and importantly how much everyone mixes too. How on earth can you think the streets pale in comparison to NYC??
Despite all the immigration, the fastest growing ethnic group is 'mixed race', and the country has the highest rates of intermarriage in the West - which outnumbers inmarriage among Blacks, continental Europeans and East Asians, and accounts for a third of South Asians. They say you'll see more mixed race couples in a day in London than a year in NYC.

"they say...." yes. a fitting final remark. well that certainly settles it. we'll just take your barrage of opinions over your own official city census then. in the future i'd encourage you to actually visit nyc someday rather than quoting jingoistic british publications that cannot even seem to keep their 'facts' straight. :rolleyes:

[Bronxbombers]

I will go to New York City way more instead of going to London.

[Derek2k3]

Though we're all suffering, Bloomberg television had a piece on how the threat of London overtaking New York as the world's financial capital has greatly been diminished.

[Alonzo-ny]

And NY hasnt been diminished greatly as well?

[zupermaus]

Both sides have lost out, the Asian markets though are making the most of it despite their own problems, something that's been gathering momentum this last year - expect the next big players to be Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore.

http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/hong-kong-gaining-prominence-as-leading-global-financial-center/2346

[ablarc]

The pound not so sterling, Britain grapples with deepening recession


By Julie Sell and Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers Julie Sell And Kevin G. Hall, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Fri Jan 23, 6:18 pm ET


LONDON — The British economy on Friday was officially declared in recession as a galloping economic crisis has driven down the value of the British pound to a 23-year low and threatened to remake the country's political landscape.

Britain's Office for National Statistics said Friday that the economy contracted by a stunning 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. That followed a 0.6 percent contraction in the three months between July and September.

Recessions typically are defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, and the last time Britain found itself in this state was in 1991. Like the United States , Britain is wrestling with a financial crisis that seems only to grow worse.

Evidence of the storm is everywhere. The unemployment rate is now 6.1 percent, up almost a full percent from a year ago, and this week the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown unveiled a second big package to stimulate lending by banks, including a guarantee plan to protect them against losses on bad assets.

Britain also increased the government's stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland to 70 percent, giving it a controlling interest. As in the United States , British banks have come under fire for failing to increase their lending to consumers and businesses despite receiving a big injection of government capital last October.

"The UK's economy is much more dependent on the financial sector than is the U.S. economy, and the financial sector is at the epicenter of this global crisis," said Nariman Behravesh , chief economist for forecaster IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass. "The UK's housing bubble was twice as big . . . so the crash is bigger, and everyone is factoring that in to the calculus on the pound (sterling)."

The British pound fell 7.3 percent against the dollar this week to close at $1.3673 . During Friday trading, the pound briefly touched $1.3570 , its lowest point against the U.S. dollar since 1985. It fell to record lows this week against the Japanese yen.

Some big-name currency traders have suggested that the pound "is finished," a charge that provoked a strong reaction from Brown on Friday. Brown admitted that "nobody" saw the "possibility of complete market failure," but he said that an American stimulus package due to be completed in the coming weeks "will give Britain and the rest of the world a boost" and that the pound will regain its lost value.

Behravesh and others, however, think that Britain's recession will be even deeper than the one unfolding in the United States , which already is expected to last longer than any other one since the Great Depression. The British economy will contract by 3 percent to 3.5 percent before it starts to recover, he said.

For Prime Minister Brown, a staunch U.S. ally, the deepening crisis adds to the gloom in a winter of discontent. A few months ago, he was viewed as a savior of the global economy when he bucked Washington's initial approach to the financial crisis and injected cash directly into his troubled banking system. The U.S. Treasury Department had intended to purchase the troubled assets clogging up the credit markets, but reversed course and followed Britain's lead.

Now the Obama administration expects to return to the original plan, while in Britain , there's talk of bank nationalization. Brown's popularity at home, and that of his Labor Party , is sinking faster than the pound.

A poll published by the Sunday Times found that the opposition Conservative party now has a 13-point edge in public opinion polls.

Much of Labor's good standing a few months ago was based on confidence in Brown's ability to right the economy. For a decade before becoming prime minister in 2007, he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, the equivalent of Treasury secretary. Brown enjoyed the credit during Britain's boom, but now, he's taking knocks.

"I blame our government for not seeing this coming," said William Hewson , an 82-year-old retiree, pointing to spiraling property prices in recent years. "I would have thought they've got more brains than me. Anyone with any sense could see it wouldn't last. They say it's all over the world now, but I don't think that's any excuse for the government."

The drop in the pound has hit Britons hard. The country has refused to adopt the euro, the currency used in much of the European Union , and that's left the pound more vulnerable as the economy shrinks and the banking system slides deeper into disarray.

The pound is the world's third most popular reserve currency, behind the dollar and euro, and the fourth most traded currency, after the dollar, the euro and the yen, and its fall has reignited debate over adopting the euro.

Nick Clegg , the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the country's third-largest political party, said Britain had an "extremely dangerous" exposure to global money flows and that switching to a "major reserve currency" would offer stability and protection.

Some financial experts agree.

"Why would you at this point buy sterling assets and add to your risk when the UK economy is disastrous?" asked Paul Goldschmidt , a former director of investment bank Goldman Sachs & Co. , and a former European financial policymaker.

Now an analyst for the Thomas More Institute , a research center in Brussels , Goldschmidt said that a shift to the euro would reduce currency risks for British businesses and give the entire region more muscle globally.

A national poll last month, however, found that more than two-thirds of British citizens prefer to stick with their beleaguered currency.


(Sell is a McClatchy special correspondent in London . Hall reported from Washington .)

[Fabrizio]

Some big-name currency traders have suggested that the pound "is finished,"

That sounds about right to me.

[Alonzo-ny]

Currencies go up and down all the time. Why, on a downer, must it be finished?

[londonlawyer]

NY and London clearly will recover and will be the world financial centers again. In fact, notwithstanding the broken world economy, they retain that status.

However, the recklessness that they exhibited might lead to some regional financial centers, such as Hong Kong, Dubai, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Paris and Frankfurt, gaining some international market share. In an absurd effort to claim the title of "the" world's financial center, NY and London were in an absurd race to deregulate and let the invisible hand run wild. As a result, this contributed to the calamity we now face. Consider today the casino that London's AIM is, and yet, NY was prepared to copy that model.

By contrast, the French and Germans were far more cautious (although Deutsche Bank and others obviously bought into the wild products sold in NY and London). Thus, people in Asia and the Middle East might seek the services of French and German banks in the future. Moreover, Asia and the Middle East likely will rely more on developing their own markets for financial services. They certainly have the capital to do so.

Given the foregoing, while NY and London likely will continue to rule to roost, their utter hegemony likely will diminish.

[nick-taylor]

That sounds about right to me.Jim Rogers said the exact same thing about the US$, and then oil a few months back....

The man decided to base himself in a city which he bet would become the new hub for the world; that was until growth expectations of Singapore came out at -5%.

I tells me one thing - do the opposite to what he predicts and you'll make a mint.



In general, every city is going to take a good kicking. Yet, in 10 years I still expect a London-New York top tier of financial centres; New York because of the US economy, and London because Singapore, Dubai, Hong Kong, etc... lack the internationalisation to do the job that it has created.

What I do see happening however is the rise of many more regional financial centres, and the losers from this international situation will be Paris, Frankfurt, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Yet the biggest loser of all will be Dubai. So dependent upon outside sources (labour - skilled and unskilled, talent, and capital), and yet it went on a spending binge where it was trying to build the relationships, houses, offices, transport and infrastructure over night. What looked amazing a few years back is going to be a wasteland for the next few decades.

The biggest winner could be the rise of an Indian financial centre.

[Alonzo-ny]

This is something Ive believed all along (Dubai). I always said that it couldnt possibly last and it was a bandwagon I would never jump on. Fundamentally, no one really wants to live in a desert, no matter how much money they get paid.

[londonlawyer]

.....In general, every city is going to take a good kicking. Yet, in 10 years I still expect a London-New York top tier of financial centres; New York because of the US economy, and London because Singapore, Dubai, Hong Kong, etc... lack the internationalisation to do the job that it has created.....


I disagree. Foreign centres like Dubai, Shanghai, etc. will resent London and NY for, as they perceive it, leading them into this mess. London led the charge with reckless deregulation (Thacher's star is quite a bit dimmer today than it was a year ago) and that will not serve it well in the next upturn. Regional, international financial centers have the money to recruit talent from NY and London and thereby to build their capabilities.

Despite the foregoing, NY will remain the world financial center because, among other reasons, the US will remain the largest economy for a very long time. (GDP per capita in the US dwarfs that of China.)

London sadly will lose not only the foreign business on which it relied but also a lot of European business. Frankfurt and Paris will emerge stronger than before.

[nick-taylor]

I disagree. Foreign centres like Dubai, Shanghai, etc. will resent London and NY for, as they perceive it, leading them into this mess. London led the charge with reckless deregulation (Thacher's star is quite a bit dimmer today than it was a year ago) and that will not serve it well in the next upturn. Regional, international financial centers have the money to recruit talent from NY and London and thereby to build their capabilities.

Despite the foregoing, NY will remain the world financial center because, among other reasons, the US will remain the largest economy for a very long time. (GDP per capita in the US dwarfs that of China.)

London sadly will lose not only the foreign business on which it relied but also a lot of European business. Frankfurt and Paris will emerge stronger than before.I disagree with pretty much all your points. The first is that Dubai, Shanghai, etc... didn't follow blindly - they are part and parcel of where we are. This whole scenario is a global issue spread across dozens of sectors, areas of expertise and job roles including regulators, academics, investors, bankers, traders, back office, admin, and joe bloggs on the street.

Secondly tighter regulations wouldn't have stopped this from coming about, in fact I would actually argue that the 'big bang' has opened up the world economy and given billions of people a greater hope of higher standards of living.

Thirdly investors aren't concerned with the past, but how they will make money in the present and future. London and New York still retain the critical mass of financial sector clusters to provide greater possibilities and potential profits to attain this.

Fourthly, other financial centres have been hit just as bad, if not worse. Singapore is experiencing a contraction that would make most people cry. Hong Kong is pretty much sharing the same red ink as the UK. Dubai, well I think it had its day; the place was building something like the equivalent of half of the office space in Hong Kong in a period of 3 years and was reliant upon a constant stream of expats filling those office desks....who are now staying at home. It will be interesting to see how they handle the swathes of migrant labourers who have their passports confiscated by developers and have no work...

Fithly, I think the main problem for regional centres is that they don't have the money to 'expand'; everyone is simply spending money to ensure that their economy keeps on ticking. Of course the big thing going for London and New York is that they have more than just talent: they have the institutions (beaten round the chops a bit, but still there), attractions, diverse cultures and cuisines, receptive atmospheres, excellent connections to the rest of the world....

Lastly, people predicted the demise of London, and the rise of Frankfurt when the € came around. They were proven horribly wrong as not just Frankfurt, but Paris and Amsterdam took the back seat to a city that didn't even adopt the currency!

New York clearly has a buffer zone in the form of the US economy, but London didn't create its role in global finance from just milling about wtih the odd foreigner. It created an environment for Russians, Arabs, Indians and Chinese. You see cities like Hong Kong/Shenzhen/Shanghai catering to China, you see Singapore catering to the SE-Asia area, you see Dubai/Qatar trying to cater to the Middle East. Yet they don't cater to the clients that need a trully global solution.

London will rebound when the world rebounds.

[londonlawyer]

As you are a London booster, I don't expect you to agree with me.

A lot of the points that you raise have nothing to do with my basic premise that foreign businesses and governments in Asia, the Middle East, etc. have developed a very sour taste for London and NY and will build their own institutions. Many sovereign funds have recently stated that they will not participate in further bailouts for Western institutions and instead will focus upon domestic opportunities.

I too love London, but I am more realistic than you are. I firmly believe that Shanghai and/or Hong Kong will overtake London as the No. 2 financial center, and that Dubai will eventually rival London for the No. 3 position.

These cities have the resources to recruit talent and build institutions that they need to compete with NY and London.

[antinimby]

Well, whatever happens, I just hope New York comes out of all this, on top--again. :)

[nick-taylor]

As you are a London booster, I don't expect you to agree with me.

A lot of the points that you raise have nothing to do with my basic premise that foreign businesses and governments in Asia, the Middle East, etc. have developed a very sour taste for London and NY and will build their own institutions. Many sovereign funds have recently stated that they will not participate in further bailouts for Western institutions and instead will focus upon domestic opportunities.

I too love London, but I am more realistic than you are. I firmly believe that Shanghai and/or Hong Kong will overtake London as the No. 2 financial center, and that Dubai will eventually rival London for the No. 3 position.

These cities have the resources to recruit talent and build institutions that they need to compete with NY and London.Yeah...I think I'll put you in the same camp that thought London would become some backwater with the demise of the British Empire, or that the introduction of the € would signal the demise of London as a financial centre.

If there is one thing London excels at other than finance, sport and diversity, compared to other cities, it is proving people wrong. As long as there is a global economy, London will be there.

[Alonzo-ny]

I think the fact it has been around since Roman times helps.

[londonlawyer]

Yeah...I think I'll put you in the same camp that thought London would become some backwater with the demise of the British Empire, or that the introduction of the € would signal the demise of London as a financial centre.

If there is one thing London excels at other than finance, sport and diversity, compared to other cities, it is proving people wrong. As long as there is a global economy, London will be there.

Hardly. We'll see what happens.

[londonlawyer]

From The London Times
January 29, 2009

British slump will be worst in developed world, says IMF
(David Moir/PA)
The International Labour Organisation predicts that 50 million jobs will be lost around the world this year

Gary Duncan, Economics Editor, in Davos and Philip Webster, Political Editor
Britain will be hit harder than any other advanced nation in the worst recession for more than 60 years, world economists warned last night.

In the bleakest assessment yet of British prospects, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast that the economy would shrink by 2.8 per cent this year, twice as much as it previously thought and far more than the 2 per cent average drop for developed nations in 2009.

The stark figures are a severe blow to Gordon Brown, who has continually insisted that Britain is better placed than most countries to weather the downturn. The IMF outlook suggests that the recession in Britain will be deeper than that in the United States, Italy, France and elsewhere.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, predicted in November that growth in Britain would rebound to at least 1.5 per cent in 2010, the likely election year, but the IMF points to a far more meagre recovery of only 0.2 per cent.

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It expects world growth to rise at no more than 0.5 per cent this year as the “scale and scope of the current financial crisis have taken the global economy into uncharted waters”. This would mean the weakest annual growth since the Second World War.

In another downbeat view, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that Britain would be saddled with government debt for more than 20 years. Regardless of which party wins the next election, tax increases and spending cuts totalling £20 billion are inevitable by the end of the next Parliament.

The International Labour Organisation predicts that 50 million jobs will be lost around the world this year, taking unemployment to 7.1 per cent, compared with 6 per cent last year.

A recovery will not be possible until the financial sector begins to function again, the IMF said. “Despite wideranging policy actions, financial strains remain acute, pulling down the real economy.” It now predicts that the US will suffer a 1.6 per cent contraction this year, while Germany and Japan will see output fall by 2.5 per cent and 2.6 per cent. But it forecast a gradual recovery for world output in 2010, with growth rising to 3 per cent.

George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, said: “This is the day when the British people were confronted with the true cost of Gordon Brown’s failures. It may be a bad day for him, but it’s an even worse day for the country.”

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat spokesman, said: “This exposes Gordon Brown’s lie that Britain is well placed to deal with the recession.”

Mr Brown’s spokesman said that the Prime Minister remained “absolutely confident” that the Government was taking the right action to get Britain through the global recession.

[Alonzo-ny]

I understand Brown may be responsible for how deep the recession is but he is not responsible for the recession. The Tories need to stop with that idiotic statement. Maybe if they stopped picking faults they would create policy and actually be an alternative to Labour. At this point they seem like children, I wouldnt trust them to govern.

[Ninjahedge]

Bush is available......

[Luca]

I understand Brown may be responsible for how deep the recession is but he is not responsible for the recession. The Tories need to stop with that idiotic statement. Maybe if they stopped picking faults they would create policy and actually be an alternative to Labour. At this point they seem like children, I wouldnt trust them to govern.

I completely agree. I personally despise Brown and Blair ideologically and politically, but the level of criticism beign levelled by the tories is asinine. Real sound-bite bullshit; Gordon is embarrassing them in parliamentary debates. Also, there has been very little in the way of alternative proposals of worth, just carping and rather droll schemes.

Much as I dislike Brown, just as the boom had reltively little to do with them, so does the recession.

[Alonzo-ny]

I cant remember the last time Cameron made proactive use of his questions at PMQs and Ive been watching for two years now.

[londonlawyer]

NY and London: Sister cities united.

From Crains New York

February 08, 2009 12:47 PM

NYC, London vie for the bottom

Though the financial crisis has pummeled both cities, the British capital is seen as harder-hit by bank collapses, falling home prices, layoffs and rising unemployment.

To Sunil Hirani, the first hint of London's troubles comes in the form of empty seats on his twice-a-month flights from New York. Upon arrival, he notes other tell-tale signs: the empty streets, the omnipresent 70%-off sales, the cabbies complaining about a 50% decline in ridership.

“It feels like a ghost town,” says Mr. Hirani, chief executive of derivatives trader Creditex. “It just feels like London has been hit harder than New York.”

Clearly, the financial crisis has pummeled both cities. Major banks have collapsed, and others are expected to require more infusions of taxpayer cash if they are to survive. London and New York share an unemployment rate—7.4%—that is only expected to climb as financial services jobs disappear by the tens of thousands and the loss reverberates in the broader economy.

“The consensus is that these cities are hurting more than anyone else,” says Greg Clark, a London-based adviser on urban development.

Trading places

On the way up, the two vied to be crowned the global financial capital. Now that the cities are flailing, economists and business leaders are trying to figure out which has been hurt more.

London appears to have lost more. By many measures—the state of its financial markets, home prices, jobs and economic diversity—the British capital has fallen further.

“London has taken a bigger and more immediate hit,” says Kathryn Wylde, chief executive of the Partnership for New York City.

The situation has changed dramatically from two years ago, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned that Wall Street could be toppled from its perch.

Last year, New York extended its lead in equity trading. Increased volatility drove trading value on the New York Stock Exchange up 15.2% and that on Nasdaq up 29.6% compared with 2007, according to the World Federation of Exchanges. The value of shares changing hands on the London Stock Exchange plummeted 37.3%.

Most distressing for Londoners, the pound has taken a beating, falling last month to $1.36, its lowest level against the dollar since 1985, and drawing virtually even with the euro. In recent years, the pound has frequently risen above $2.

“People took it for granted that they could pop across to Paris for the weekend and bring back some wine,” says New York transplant Malinda Campbell, a creative director at a London-based museum consultancy. “But now there's lots of talk of holidays at home.”

Meanwhile, the strengthening dollar indicates renewed global confidence in the United States, even as it is gripped by a deepening recession and is blamed by many for the global downturn.

Precise comparisons are difficult on the labor front, but metropolitan London lost 32,000 jobs in the three months through November compared with the year-earlier period; New York City lost 22,500.

Both cities depend heavily on the financial sector, which accounts for 500,000 jobs in London and 455,000 here. But New York's economy has been aided by its greater diversity.

Strength beyond finance

“London was so tied to financial services, but New York has media, technology and health care,” Mr. Hirani says. City officials have worked hard in recent years to bolster other industries. Tax breaks helped spur film and television activity and are also attracting biotech firms, for example.

Another key component, the housing markets, exploded in both cities in recent years. Though London's bubble has burst, New York's has just deflated.

Average home prices nose-dived in central London in 2008 but were still rising for most of the year in Manhattan. London prices fell 16.9% and are expected to bottom out 30% below their peak, according to British property consulting firm Knight Frank.

In Manhattan, average prices rose 17.8% last year—despite fourth-quarter softness, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

News from London has not been all bad, however. The city remains a center of international finance, with the largest cross-border capital flows of any country in the world. Of the 20 top initial public offerings in London in the past three years, 14 were by non-U.K. companies, while only four of New York's top 20 IPOs were by international firms.

In the effort to recover, New York's business and political leaders are working to diversify its economy even more. A report released last week by the Center for an Urban Future said that a more varied industry mix is vital. And at Crain's The Future of New York City conference last week, Mr. Bloomberg spoke of initiatives to bolster film, fashion and biotech.

Rivalry set aside—for now

As for financial services, regulators will play a key role in any future debate over which city is No. 1, with governments in both countries promising reform.

“How we change or don't change the regulatory structure for financial markets and how we increase or don't increase regulation is truly the question for 2009,” says Rae Rosen, chief economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

For now, New York and London have largely put their rivalry aside. The two cities realize the fates of their critical financial-services sectors are largely intertwined.

“All the London ahead of New York and New York ahead of London was easy play when the world was a very friendly place,” says Bridget Rosewell, chairman of London-based economics advisory firm Volterra Consulting and a leading British economist. “New York and London have always behaved a bit like siblings. When there's nobody else about, they'll squabble, but if you attack the family, we'll defend each other.”

[antinimby]

Regardless of their current levels of despair, London I feel, will always have the upper hand simply because it's the UK's lone hub of everything.

Sadly, New York has no such advantage because it has many other American counterparts and alternatives such as Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Washington DC, Seattle, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, etc. all vying for the same things.

[londonlawyer]

I don't agree.

While I love London and the U.K., NY is the de facto capital of the country with the world's largest and most diverse economy; as such, NY has vast advantages over London economically.

[Alonzo-ny]

After everything London has been through over the years and it still always comes back.

[Fabrizio]

Maybe we just have to rethink what success and importance means.

A million years ago, in the 1960's, London was a much poorer town and the Brits a poorer people but London was at the forefront of music & fashion... it was a trend setting place that the world looked to.

[195Broadway]

Good point. The same might be said of 1970's NYC.

[Ninjahedge]

They all go through cycles. The trick is, seeing how you can limit the downbeat so that the least amount of damage is rendered.

[Alonzo-ny]

The most damage done in NY in recent times from what I can see has been done during the just ended boom.

[Ninjahedge]

The most damage done in NY in recent times from what I can see has been done during the just ended boom.

The key now is to try and make sure that all the stores that got shoved out because of rising rents can come back.

Or, at least, we do not end up with a bunch of closed banks, cell phone stores and Starbucks'.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

Yes, London wins the competition for a proud and unflinching display of the wholesale theft of the roof of the Parthenon.

There are more theatres in the state of Nebraska than in the city of London.

Zuper, get over it. Its not a pissing contest. London just sucks Harry Balls!

That would be correct. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/jun/16/acropolis-museum-athens-elgin-marbles)

[ZippyTheChimp]

Maybe we just have to rethink what success and importance means.

A million years ago, in the 1960's, London was a much poorer town and the Brits a poorer people but London was at the forefront of music & fashion.


London was popular and exciting in the 60s. Icelandair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandair) was the way to go. Dirt cheap.


They all go through cycles. The trick is, seeing how you can limit the downbeat so that the least amount of damage is rendered.The economic fortunes of NYC changed drastically from the 20s to the 30s. But its creative spirit didn't miss a beat.

[ZippyTheChimp]

There are more theatres in the state of Nebraska than in the city of London.The perils of citing Fly Over Country. (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/844)

[stache]

A friend of mine is currently playing Lady Macbeth in Omaha. :eek:

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

London palace guard attacks student

Published: Jan. 23, 2009 at 4:52 PM

A Colombian tourist said a guard at London's St. James's Palace attacked him for mimicking his marching style.

Nick Ibarra, 23, who is studying at England's Oxford University, said the guard turned to him after noticing the student matching his marching steps, The Daily Mail reported Friday.

"I felt this huge hand on my collar and managed to avoid a boot up the backside but he was growling-like a bear," Ibarra said. "I was worried because he had a bayonet on his gun and didn't want that going somewhere painful. He pushed me away with the gun and I just ran for it."

The incident was caught on tape by Suzanne Cadosch, a friend of Ibarra.

"You often see people pulling faces at the guards and marching along with them but obviously this soldier didn't find it funny," she said. "In hindsight I can understand the soldier losing his cool but it was very frightening."

A colleague of a guard, a member of the 1st Battalion of the Scots Guards of the Guards Division, said the sentry "will be in hot water for losing his cool when he should have ignored it."

The guard is not supposed to leave his post except in cases involving a threat to a member of the royal family.

A Ministry of Defense spokesman said officials will attempt to identify the guard and "speak to him about his behavior."

[Gekko]

I've got to say my good people - I am more inclined towards saying LONDON it is the better place - at least there's a sense of culture which is reflected in through the people, their lifestyles, the buildings, etc ... and its a lot more green. Take for example the hotels: again a grt british feel but they are just so more classier, more sophisticated take for example Hempel Hotel London (http://www.gekko.com/Main.html#pageId%3DPOI.summary.d%3D1.id%3D5160) it oozes a great sense of what makes London a Fabulous City.

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
5 of your 19 posts are linked to your site.

Stop spamming.

[Bronxbombers]

I find that New York City way much better than London.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Oh, Jesus.

[Ninjahedge]

Way much Zip.


Way


much.

[NYCboy1212]

I know this article is old but its interesting.

http://www.nysun.com/new-york/ny-fares-well-vs-london-in-a-new-study/83495/

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

Fallen off or pushed off by Italians.....



I see you are taking the British naturalisation process quite seriously. You'll be one of us soon enough!

Nick, there are 3 Englishman leaving your country every minute.

Something the hell is wrong over there.

And theres no such thing as being "British", its a fiction.

OI DONT TORK TO POIPLE FROM THE NORTH!

[English Muffin]

Nick, there are 3 Englishman leaving your country every minute.

Something the hell is wrong over there.

I should imagine that's an under-estimate. We have such a cosy social security program that we are being flooded with 'eastern europeans' (gipsies) who arrive unchecked of rape/murder/assault crimes committed in their own country. So street attacks are common.

There's a growing knife-culture amongst young ethnics who, to avoid detention when caught, hand their blade to a younger brother (who cannot be charged). So knife crimes are common.

The number of immigrants flooding in is so great, the government openly lies about immigration figures. There's a school in one London borough whose pupils speak any of 51 different languages, with little or no english at all. This holds the english kids back as they have to wait while the immigrant children 'learn basic communication skills' so they can 'catch up'.

And after school these kids force their own culture upon their peers - who try to act like them to avoid being stabbed. It's reached the point where english-born white kids speak with an afro-caribbean accent because that's now the majority local accent.

To help rocketing crime the situation, the Labour government introduce around 2000 new laws a year to incriminate everybody. There are more CCTV cameras per square foot than any other country in the world. Walk through any town here and look up. No matter where you are, I guarantee that you'll be able to see at least a dozen.

Local councils have been granted legal rights to pass their own 'laws'. In some boroughs you can be taken to court and fined for putting your grarbage out on the wrong day. In other boroughs if your garbage can is more than 1.3 metres from the kerb it won't be collected (and you'll be fined).

So many bye-laws, so much crime yet no real increase in policing - so crime does pay over here now. Report a burglar in your house and the police won't even come. Tackle a burglar in your house and you'll be sent to jail because the burglar has more rights than you do - even in your own house.

Suspected terror victims get off fairly easily too because under the 'human rights act' the state must provide them with a state-paid defence lawyer. And because the remuneration from the state is so lucrative, the smartest and best lawyers become human rights defence lawyers. As a result, the lawyers working for the terrorists are smarter than the lowly-paid state lawyers - and so the terrorists win their case and walk free.

So yes, given half a chance, anyone who can see what is going on here is very keen to leave.

[Fabrizio]

^In Italy we are just beginning to face much of the above. It's not a pretty picture.

[meesalikeu]

good lawd, they dont pick up the garbage and theres a school in one london borough where the students speak different languages. i am shocked. shocked. england is doomed. :rolleyes:

[Luca]

English Muffin is wildly overstating the reality on the ground. :confused:

There are serious problems, to be sure; not just due to "ethnics", either.

But EM makes it sound like "Escape from New York". WHere is 'Snake' Plinsky when you need him. :rolleyes:

[Ninjahedge]

English Muffin is wildly overstating the reality on the ground. :confused:

There are serious problems, to be sure; not just due to "ethnics", either.

But EM makes it sound like "Escape from New York". WHere is 'Snake' Plinsky when you need him. :rolleyes:


Actually it sounded a bit more like West Side Story, without the dancing....



Or maybe a bit of Clockwork. Tell me Luca, do you have any Milk Bars in London?

[Springheeljack]

Went to London and I have to say it´s a magnificent city! The architecture is awesome, the nightlife is insane and the streetlife is hectic to say the least. Although the city is vast it is still very charming and friendly.

I think it´s insane to compare London to NYC. Architecturally London is far superior. There is everything from medieval buildings (even some Roman remains) to modern glass and steel architecture. In NYC most buildings date from the 19th or 20th centuries. Now that is not very impressive. I´m not saying NYC looks bad (the skyscrapers are amazing), but it can´t match London.

NYC is also more violent than London. When it comes to cuisine the cities are on par. However, if I remember correctly London does have more michelin starred restaurants than NYC.

Economically and culturally NYC and London are on the same level, although I would imagine the living standard to be higher in London.

@ Gregory. What is your problem? Complaining about London´s police force (can´t argue with you here though) when the US is by far the most undemocratic and backwards society in the Western world. Get a grip for ****´s sake.

Edit: The word **** actually gets censored on these boards? How...American.

[Fabrizio]

The editing of these words has nothing to to with being prudish.

Free use of them can make the forum inelegant and coarse.

You know: just a little too... British.

[scumonkey]

NYC is also more violent than London
That might not be true anymore?!;)

from: the Daily Banter

"Violent crime in the U.K is double that of the United States with London, the capital, being one of the most violent city in the western world."

"London has a slightly smaller population than New York, but its crime rate is 7 times higher (http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9641), with twice as many street crimes (http://www.reform.co.uk/website/pressroom/articles.aspx?o=280)."

"The situation, particularly for young people, has lead to some parents buying body armour (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1552956.ece) for their children to go to school in. Knife crimes occur at about one every eight minutes (http://www.newkerala.com/july.php?action=fullnews&id=55065) in Britain (175 a day), creating a sense of panic and total distrust in the government to deal with the situation."

From: The American Spectator-
London and British crime rates have been increasing for years. Recently total crime rates for London have been estimated at about seven times those of New York for a slightly smaller population and some authorities suggest these figures have been minimized. England and Wales are now accounted by some estimates as the most dangerous places for crime in the developed world.

[ablarc]

^ Valiantly, scumonkey rushes in to fill the vacuum left by Gregory's departure. ;)

[Alonzo-ny]

You know: just a little too... British.

I object to being tarred with that brush.

As for crime being 7 times worse than NY, think about that statement for a second.

For example 2007 stats

Murder: NYC 801, London 162
Rape 2900~, 2300~

Obviously some things will be higher in London and some things are higher in NY but to say 7 times worse is complete nonsense. If you multiply all the NY crime stats by 7 you get something like Johannesburg. Its a baseless and scaremongering statement.

[nick-taylor]

That might not be true anymore?!;)

from: the Daily Banter

"Violent crime in the U.K is double that of the United States with London, the capital, being one of the most violent city in the western world."

"London has a slightly smaller population than New York, but its crime rate is 7 times higher (http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9641), with twice as many street crimes (http://www.reform.co.uk/website/pressroom/articles.aspx?o=280)."

"The situation, particularly for young people, has lead to some parents buying body armour (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1552956.ece) for their children to go to school in. Knife crimes occur at about one every eight minutes (http://www.newkerala.com/july.php?action=fullnews&id=55065) in Britain (175 a day), creating a sense of panic and total distrust in the government to deal with the situation."

From: The American Spectator-
London and British crime rates have been increasing for years. Recently total crime rates for London have been estimated at about seven times those of New York for a slightly smaller population and some authorities suggest these figures have been minimized. England and Wales are now accounted by some estimates as the most dangerous places for crime in the developed world.The problem with crime stats is that if people live in fear, or don't bother to report problems they don't paint a realistic view of what is going on.

For instance, there was an article recently stating that Britain had more crime than South Africa - a country where police don't venture into in some areas, or where figures are based on pure guesswork.

One variable (and a good gauge to see the level of crime) you can pretty much guarantee on is the number of murders, simply because its exceptionally hard to dispose of a body, and in most cases people want others to acknowledge that someone is no longer around.

London - 12 months rolling
146 (7.6mn)

New York - 6 months
211 (8.3mn)

Thankfully the majority of deaths are gang-related.

[Fabrizio]

Alonzo... mine was a joke in response to the pretentiousness of his.

[ZippyTheChimp]

For example 2007 stats

Murder: NYC 801,
Rape 2900~, ~Those numbers are for NY State.

For NYC:

Murder - 494
Rape - approx 1000.

[scumonkey]

Valiantly, scumonkey rushes in to fill the vacuum left by Gregory's departure. ;)Hey, I object to that...:mad:
I didn't quote the Guardian.:rolleyes:
I also said it "MIGHT not be true"- I don't know (and don't presume to):confused:
If you checked out the links I provided, they clearly show that NY has a higher murder rate-
as to the rest of the crime stats- I leave that up to the individual to decide...
I'm not wearing blinders (Unlike GT, I have a dual citizenship -american/british, actually like London,
-visit when I can!
I also believe most of the architecture is more pleasing -but can do without the cuisine :p).
I didn't try to belittle anyone with childish, Americanized British slang, I called nobody a chav,
AND
I didn't ask anybody to send over James Bond so I can kick his butt:D
I just posted a few lines I found, from some of the many sources that claim crime (not violent), was on the rise.:cool:

[ablarc]

Yeah well, you better sharpen up your verbal abuse if you wanna come anywhere near filling ol' Greg's shoes. ;)

[scumonkey]

Looks like it's you ablarc -bucking to fill his shoes.:rolleyes:
I'm not the one accusing or egging anyone on here
(GT is the last person whose shoes- i would even even think about trying on).
But if you miss arguing with him sooo much so,
that you felt you had to choose someone else to take his place,
then you jumped the gun a bit early.
There is no need to use me as your scapegoat-
Looks like his status has changed from banned, back to turtle bay playboy.
I'm sure he can more than accommodate your needs, to
childishly keep arguing and bickering over such inane minutiae.:cool:

[Fabrizio]

Hey guys, I'll take his place! No problem.


From the Sunday Times - August 19,2007

"THE British are more likely to be the victims of serious crime than the citizens of any of the industrialised nations. We face the highest level of assaults in Europe. There is more risk of being robbed on our streets than in the United States."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2284384.ece

[ablarc]

Scumonkey, I was just ribbing you. Both my comments were actually about GregoryTenenbaum. Look for the irony.

Didn't mean to upset you. Sorry. :)

[scumonkey]

I wasn't sure :confused: (can't see your face on line ;)) irony spotted:p - Cool:D

[ZippyTheChimp]

"THE British are more likely to be the victims of serious crime than the citizens of any of the industrialised nations. We face the highest level of assaults in Europe. There is more risk of being robbed on our streets than in the United States."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2284384.eceBadly written article:


Unsurprisingly, the government prefers a measure - the British Crime Survey - which paints a rosier picture. But the survey excludes key crimes, not least those against young people, the frequent victims of street crime. The true level of crime is three times higher than the survey suggests - a staggering 30m offences a year. What survey?

The "true level of crime" from what - statistics, another survey, perception?

[Fabrizio]

I have absolutely no idea. I'm just posting as fast as I can. Let's not confuse the issue by pausing for analysis.

(Next up: Italy+racism.)

[ZippyTheChimp]

The questions were preceded by a related quote from the article. It should be obvious where they were directed.

[ZippyTheChimp]

In 2008, 117,765 total crimes were reported in NYC.
In the last 12 months, 843,449 total crimes were reported in London.

843,449 divided by 117,765 = 7.16

Now where have I seen the number 7 before?

NYPD Compstat only documents felony crimes. You have to go elsewhere for misdemeanors. When you consider that in 1990, one of the worst years for crime in NYC history, 527,257 total crimes were reported, it's obvious that the London figure includes lower level crime than what is considered a felony in the US.

Sources:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cscity.pdf
http://www.met.police.uk/crimefigures/

[MidtownGuy]

I have absolutely no idea. I'm just posting as fast as I can. Let's not confuse the issue by pausing for analysis.

(Next up: Italy+racism.)

Aww, don't be bitter.
Please repair your ego and move on, we know that thread was traumatic for you.

[Alonzo-ny]

In the UK every little thing is recorded as a crime, add into that the targets which the police are made to aim for. Resulting in many small crimes being reported that would otherwise probably be ignored. I believe they actually have crime quotas if you can believe that. So if they do their job and crime drops they cant meet their quota and will be regarded as bad at their job!

[Fabrizio]

...we know that thread was traumatic for you.

(I heart revisionist history.)

---

And so: It might now be London's turn... or the UK's turn, to deal with a higher crime rate... for a myriad of reasons. But will murders ever approach 2000 a year as they did in NYC?

And while GT says:


Nick, there are 3 Englishman leaving your country every minute.

Something the hell is wrong over there.



Again look at the bigger picture. What does leaving the country mean... when a country is so small? In the US, through it's history, there has also been population shifts.

In the UK it might be to France or to Spain... in the US from the North to the South. If things aren't working out in California... you might pick up and leave for New York.

And some US cities certainly experienced an exodus... with dramatic drops in population.

[Alonzo-ny]

The lesson is GT's stats are wrong. According to his 3 a minute logic about 1.5 million people leave the country every year. In reality its more like 3/4 hundred thousand leaving per year and 5/6 hundred thousand people enter the country.

At the moment alot of expats are returning home, particularly from Spain which isn't surprising considering how bad unemployment is there.

[nick-taylor]

(I heart revisionist history.)

And so: It might now be London's turn... or the UK's turn, to deal with a higher crime rate... for a myriad of reasons. But will murders ever approach 2000 a year as they did in NYC?

And while GT says:

Again look at the bigger picture. What does leaving the country mean... when a country is so small? In the US, through it's history, there has also been population shifts.

In the UK it might be to France or to Spain... in the US from the North to the South. If things aren't working out in California... you might pick up and leave for New York.

And some US cities certainly experienced an exodus... with dramatic drops in population.Crime in London and the UK is falling (homicide for instance is down 12.6% on the previous year in London), so I am uncertain whether we'll see London or the entire UK (pop: 60mn+) reaching the murderous streak of the New York of old. Around 700 people were killed in the UK last year, about 200 more than that for NYC.


If 3 fit working age people left Britain for good every minute I would be worried. Fortunately the breakdown is more like:
- One of those people being a retiree going to a villa in Spain or France (the equivalent of Florida)
- Another being a student taking a gap year between 6th form and university to help build a school in some African village, or someone taking say a cruise around the world (ie they'll be returning)
- One actually emigrating elsewhere for good who is of working age (although due to greater ease of relocating around the globe, more people are moving around the world, and more people are returning)

Fortunately with 5 people coming in every minute, the issue isn't really too much of a problem, and part of the reason why the British economy has over the past decade outperformed its continental friends. We're also fortunate not to have the situation such as that found in Spain where they are offering people €1,000's to return home.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

London is the centre of......nothing.

You leave England for China, and the very reason you want to leave is already there.

This guy for example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neNuyzPe1Rw&feature=channel

So then you go to Japan

And the very reason you want to leave is already there.

This guy for example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFOhsnB7lpI&feature=related

Nuff said.

[Fabrizio]

So... this is what it's like being a playboy in Turtle Bay.

[Alonzo-ny]

The crime that is up in the UK, and its definitely up, is petty crime and general intimidation with groups of young people hanging around in large groups. There also seems to be an increase in gangs but it may just be in the spotlight, the same could be said about guns.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

The crime on the streets in the UK is not restricted to those groups, it covers all people, (a lot ethnic on ethnic, and husband on wife) and people you wouldn't even suspect too. Things that are illegal here are perfectly acceptable ways of stealing money elsewhere, but that is probably going to change.
(http://sleepny.lefora.com/2009/07/12/london-may-lose-to-ny-and-hong-kong-on-hedge-funds/)
That's why no big Madoff in London, "the financial capital" ---- not yet anyway.

[Luca]

Gregg-gy! Gregg-gy! Gregg-gy! :) ;) :D

I'm becoming a fan of this guy. Free entertainment. :rolleyes:

On the serious side: crime measurement in London as elsewhere is politically loaded but all the evidence is that property crime is somewhat higher in London than NYC while violent crime is lower. It clearly IS a problem here, but there is no call for alarmism or sensationalism (unless yer trying to sell papers). As was/is the case in NYC, much of the violence is circumscribed to easily avoided areas/situations (not that this makes it OK, of course). In terms of law enforcement, I think the Met (leadership) is still stuck in 1970s 'co-causal' bull (you know, open more "yoof centres" and the yobs won't be knifing little old ladies for spare change sort of moronic reasoning).

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

So it took you that long to work that out.

I thought you were smart.

[Springheeljack]

It´s quite interesting that there actually are people like Tenenbaum :D

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

I guess SpringHeelJack, that unlike you, I dont deny who I am.

That and I am able to contribute to the forum in a sensible and intelligent fashion.

If you are the best that England has to offer, perhaps you could start by posting something either relevant or intelligent - now there's a choice you simply can't refuse.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seaOBmuJCBw&feature=related)

http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/pinafore/web_opera/images/becket-walker_s.jpg
THIS ENGLISHMAN
LIKES
JAFFA CAKES
DON'T YOU?

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

A man was arrested for being "too tall" by Kent police.
(http://sleepny.lefora.com/2009/07/17/photography-in-stasiland-london/)
London Lawyer, could you explain to the forum how that can happen under the Queen's laws?

I guess that for tall people, New York is better than London.

And for the rest?

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

Ok, so what if you aren't tall, but are a longstanding local resident in an area in London that is going to be used to build an airport.

Would you be better off in London or New York?

In London, if you talk to your local congressman and express concern about it, you will be filmed by the police -the story as it happened in England recently is here (http://sleepny.lefora.com/2009/07/18/never-ever-talk-to-your-mp-about-an-airport-in-eng/page1/)

I dont think that would happen in New York.

So on the scoreboard, that's another point for NY - ie being able to express concerns or opposition to a project without being filmed by what appears to be a "stasi like apparatus", as an English congressman said it was in that article.

If you think that's bad, what about the Londoner arrested for being too tall - story here (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=291027&postcount=165)

[Pdog]

As a young multinational, London is far superior to NY. It just feels like there are more people from different countries; better nightlife; safe; and if you go to different parts of the city it can feel completely different in terms of charm and character. For instance compare the difference of these famous markets:

Borough Market
Portabello Road market
Brick Lane market
Camden market

They are all so different with their own charm something NY will find hard to replicate due to its lack of long history.

I understand they are completely different cities but London has more to offer with more layers of character; architecture and history which I feel to be more interesting and liveable. You wouldn't understand unless you really got to know London. And p.s I was born in South Africa, lived in NY and now studying in London

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

They are all so different with their own charm something NY will find hard to replicate due to its lack of long history.

I guess these guys dont count then.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3133/2703121057_755180cdb4.jpg

http://www.native-languages.org/york.jpg

http://abagond.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/delaware-indians.jpg

You post was so 19th Century.

Tell me, was thinking like a 19th Century white aristo compulsory where you went to school?

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

As a young multinational, London is far superior to NY.

How does being a multinational (what is that?) make London "far superior". The food? How about saying: "As a person, etc...". Because New Yorkers or Americans wouldn't be multi-national now, would they ;).

You are studying, presumably at college/university level. Write a paper with your statement as a premise and publish it.

See?

[ZippyTheChimp]

As a young multinational,

LOL!

You really mean, "As a young Brit."

[Pdog]

calm down it was a mistake. You both can't respond to my comments properly so I assume you have nothing to counter the discussion. New York cannot compare with London or anywhere in Europe in terms of its sense history and I suppose its superior cultural feel. And the food in London is the same if not better than the US ( btw its just a naive myth associated with England, they have moved on, something you could appreciate if you went.)

Also I see Greg is un banned again! I suppose Zippy has brought him back to fuel the fire and wave the patriot American flag at the brits again - its just sad. Zippy your role as a moderator is laughable as you won't ban idiots like Greg and it brings down the whole forum. Its probably why the forum has the same people on it with no new members contributing. This is something I have brought up before after gregs comments on the London projects thread. I have also had an unpleasant private message from him which I deem to be borderline bulling tactics to control the discussion. I don't associate myself with morons like this which is why I won't be contributing again. bon voyage

[ZippyTheChimp]

Also I see Greg is un banned again! I suppose Zippy has brought him back to fuel the fire and wave the patriot American flag at the brits again - its just sad. Zippy your role as a moderator is laughable as you won't ban idiots like Greg and it brings down the whole forum.Actually, I had nothing to do with the banning or unbanning of GT (he was suspended for a week). So drawing an uninformed conclusion has only made you appear foolish.


Its probably why the forum has the same people on it with no new members contributing. This is something I have brought up before after gregs comments on the London projects thread.The forum administrator owns this website, and sets the tone.


calm down it was a mistake. You both can't respond to my comments properlyLet's see. I laughed out loud and corrected something you subsequently acknowledged to be a mistake. That's even funnier.

If this gets your panties tied up in a knot, lots of luck with life.


so I assume you have nothing to counter the discussion.I've frequently expressed my aversion to these vs threads, but as for not contributing to the discussion.... I thought I did a pretty good job of digging out those stats.

[Alonzo-ny]

PMs can be forwarded to Edward if you feel they have crossed a line.

[Ninjahedge]

I guess this was to show how friendly multi-nationals can be? :confused:

[Luca]

I think by multi-national he must have meant that his parentage is not just form one country.

For what it's worth, I think it's asinine to try to argue the "sense-of-history" angle between London and NYC... don't embarrass yourself. It would be liek soemone from London arguing with someone from San Diego about the weather...

I just wonder how many people really care or derive lasting benefit from "a sense of hsitory"?? I know I do (and miss that when in the US), but how common is it, really??

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

I guess he thinks that the Indian civilizations don't count then.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

wave the patriot American flag at the brits again

I am more multinational than you think.

But to you, like everyone else, Im probably just a "Watered Down Brit".

Keep thinking that way.

[Luca]

I guess he thinks that the Indian civilizations don't count then.

Papua New Guinea has probably been populated by humans as long or longer than, say, France. Until quite recently, however, it has been populated by people who, however fascinating their myriad individual cultures and tribes, have not produced the art, literature, music, architecture, political developments, philosophy, military science, economy & finance, etc., etc. that France has and that you can still see and breathe strolling around Paris.

All individuals are equally worthy of basic respect and rights and all cultures have some innate worth and, perhaps, something to teach us, but not all cultures have been similarly accomplished. That is a fact that all but the dimmest, ivory-tower relativist plainly see.

With rare exceptions, the only 'history' there exists of pre-Colombian people in North America is the result of ex-post archeological work by the descendants of Europeans (or other people assimilated, usually unwillingly, to their ways).

I think the statement that, say, Massachusetts, does not have the same weight of history resting upon it as, I dunno, Cambridge is obvious. Similarly, Cambridge vs., say, Rome.

What is less obvious, to my mind, is to whom is that relevant.

[Springheeljack]

Gregory you are one repulsive ****er. Stop sending me childish and sociopathic PMs.

Anyway, back on topic. As I see it the only advantage NYC has over London is its skyline. In a few years London will have a world-class skyline. In most other fields NYC lags behind.

Btw, I´m not from the UK.

And, Gregory stop posting stupid stories about London. The US is the most fascist nation in the western world. Ignorant prick.

[infoshare]

Ignorant prick.

I like this guy! ;)

[ablarc]

I like this guy! ;)
Well, so do I.

He's still out of line though with the ad hominems.

Rules is rules.

Mr. Moderator?

[BrooklynRider]

Springheeljack,

Forum rules of conduct prohibit personal attacks on other forum members.

Gregory Tennebaum is no longer a forum member, so you did not break the Rules of Conduct. :cool: However, in the future, if any active members make posts you find objectionable, please shoot a PM to a moderator or flag the post for our attention.

I'm enjoying your posting. Welcome to the Forum!:)

[Springheeljack]

^Thanks guys :)

I got a bit carried away, I´m sorry. It´s just that I can´t stand it when people are behaving like Gregory did.

[TheBRONXKid]

Wow lol most people from london would even tell u new york is better. lol. On the most basic of levels, you hold london in one hand and new york on the other; new york simply even looks much more impressive than london. lol no comparison

New york is the fashion cap of the world
New york is the food cap of the world
Host the two most dominate financial institutions in the world( NYSE EURONEXT, NASDAQ)

New york city has modern greatness, it doesnt matter that london is older. New yorks history is more relevant today. By that account cairo,alexandria etc are greater than new york

New yorks interntional appeal is greater. Both with a presence heavy in america and overseas. London doesnt have that. On the most basic of level look at the yankees-kids and adults alike wear yankee fitteds in london. Yankees play in a sport thats not even popular in the rest of the world. Just off the strength of it being new york it gets recognized. Nothing from london is even that close to that level over here

More interesting neighborhoods, not even exclusive to just manhattan. To my understanding the guy who made this thread moved to new york. Than your argument is lol laughable u moved here for a reason

New york is the birthplace to modern cultural movements(hiphop,punkrock) that dominate pop culture and is very big over there

Nyc has greater transit-24/7 365 extensive through out the city. Its about getting from point a to point b at anytime. Your not taking a cab from queens to manhattan 3:00 in the morning.Your going to Pay that 2.25 and keep it moving. It doesnt matter that london has night buses, we already have that too.lol catch up. Get ya air conditioning fixed first before ya talk. Every new yorker got on that one train where the ac wasnt working lmao, imagine it being like that all the time

[zupermaus]

omg Im not even going to start, but I think this guy needs to travel a bit more (and not just to London). The ignorance is a bit much...

[ablarc]

These burg-vs-burg comparisons are really tiresome. They bring out to worst in people. Should they be banned?

[ZippyTheChimp]

We've talked about it.

[kz1000ps]

omg Im not even going to start, but I think this guy needs to travel a bit more (and not just to London). The ignorance is a bit much...

A post like the BRONXKid's doesn't deserve acknowledgement, let alone a legitimate response.

99% of the time "versus" threads lead nowhere good, and you end up getting first time posters who post out of passion and little else.

[Springheeljack]

Can I politely respond to this kid´s post?



Wow lol most people from london would even tell u new york is better. lol. On the most basic of levels, you hold london in one hand and new york on the other; new york simply even looks much more impressive than london. lol no comparison

NYC has more skyscrapers, if that´s what you mean by impressive?


New york is the fashion cap of the world

Er..no. Ever heared of Paris, London, Milan or Tokyo? (no none of them are in America)


New york is the food cap of the world

You probably get amazing food in NYC, but that title definitely goes to Paris.


Host the two most dominate financial institutions in the world( NYSE EURONEXT, NASDAQ)

NYC is on par with London these days. However, given the current economic climate (it´s bad) I wouldn´t brag much about your economy.


New york city has modern greatness, it doesnt matter that london is older. New yorks history is more relevant today. By that account cairo,alexandria etc are greater than new york

NYC has a history of it´s own, but I´m sorry to say that outside the US no one knows anything about that city´s history. This cannot be said about London which was the world´s first true industrialised metropolis.


New yorks interntional appeal is greater. Both with a presence heavy in america and overseas. London doesnt have that. On the most basic of level look at the yankees-kids and adults alike wear yankee fitteds in london. Yankees play in a sport thats not even popular in the rest of the world. Just off the strength of it being new york it gets recognized. Nothing from london is even that close to that level over here

Utter nonsense. Ever heared of football? The world´s biggest sport. Ever heared of Wembley Stadium? You´ve never seen anything like it in NYC.


More interesting neighborhoods, not even exclusive to just manhattan. To my understanding the guy who made this thread moved to new york. Than your argument is lol laughable u moved here for a reason

More interesting? That is purely subjective. Thanks to its long history London has more architectural diversity. That is a fact.

I´m sure NYC has many lovely neighbourhoods though.


New york is the birthplace to modern cultural movements(hiphop,punkrock) that dominate pop culture and is very big over there

It´s hard not to laugh at your ignorance here, but I´ll give it a try. London was world known for it´s punk scene, ever heared of The Clash? As for pop culture/music, London (and the rest of Britain) has contributed at least as much to the world as America has.


Nyc has greater transit-24/7 365 extensive through out the city. Its about getting from point a to point b at anytime. Your not taking a cab from queens to manhattan 3:00 in the morning.Your going to Pay that 2.25 and keep it moving. It doesnt matter that london has night buses, we already have that too.lol catch up. Get ya air conditioning fixed first before ya talk. Every new yorker got on that one train where the ac wasnt working lmao, imagine it being like that all the time

First of all, the London underground is more modern than the NYC subway. Seconly, London´s bus network is more than three times the size of NYC´s. Don´t know what you´re getting at with the taxi thing.

[scumonkey]

Originally Posted by TheBRONXKid http://wirednewyork.com/forum/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=292755#post292755)
New york is the fashion cap of the world
Er..no. Ever heared of Paris, London, Milan or Tokyo? (no none of them are in America)

Sorry to tell you Springheeljack...
while most of what you claim can be said to be true. a few of your claims are wrong
(or at least outdated)

New york WAS the fashion capital but was recently replaced...
The Top Thirty Fashion Capitals, change from 2008 ranking, and commentary follow. 1. Milano (+3) -
Not only overtakes New York but also Rome and Paris.
2. New York (-1) - Knocked out of Top Spot by Milano after a five-year run.
3. Paris (0) - No 1. in our hearts but No. 3 in the media.

http://www.languagemonitor.com/news/milan-upends-new-york-as-top-fashion-capital

And as for food (that is subjective )however:
Toyko's restaurants have been awarded a record 227 stars in the latest Michelin guide - more than Paris, London and New York.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/3484961/Tokyo-named-culinary-capital-of-world.html

[Alonzo-ny]

The fashion thing is defined by how many times words appear in print and on the internet? Surely that subject would be better judged by how many fashion companies, shoots, modelling agencies, etc are in a particular city.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Can I politely respond to this kid´s post?By responding to this sort of uninformed post, you become part of the problem.

[Luca]

And as for food (that is subjective )however:
Toyko's restaurants have been awarded a record 227 stars in the latest Michelin guide - more than Paris, London and New York.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/3484961/Tokyo-named-culinary-capital-of-world.html

Thanks for your evidence-based approach, "Scumonkey".

I would point out that perhaps Michelin stars are a skewed, celebrity-chef oriented take on food but clearly a lot more goes into it than some poster's (including mine) random subjective thought.

I'd like to balance this with some factor for 1) presence of accessibly priced varied and high-quality national/regional cuisine and 2) presence of mid-priced, high-quality variety of international cuisines.

For instance, I would say that London is quite replete with top-notch restaurants (with bills to match) but still only starting to provide an 'infrastructure' of affordable, good-quality places offering local cuisine (and, at best, British cuisine is a 3rd rank one, despite isolated examples of brilliance) and international cuisine. I know the London dining scene as well as anyone who doesn’t cover it professionally, so in most parts of London I can eat well and not always spend a fortune, but if you walk into the average eating establishment it's poor to dire.

From my much more limited experience, NYC is a lot like London. Lots of amazing places. Lots of less well known neighborhood gems but 60-80% of places one might just randomly walk in are really still very poor. This could not be said of any French or Italian city or even Japan, with perhaps the exception of very touristy areas.

[ablarc]

^ The restaurants I encountered in Tokyo had food to kill for. Only Hong Kong provided equal culinary adventure.

Cheap, fresh, delicious food? You can't beat Rome.

And is there any establishment in Paris where the food is just humdrum? Even the cheapest steak frites place serves up a meal fit for a king.

As you say, plenty of not-so-good food to be had in London and New York, but if you know what you're doing...

[ablarc]

I would point out that perhaps Michelin stars are a skewed, celebrity-chef oriented take on food but clearly a lot more goes into it than some poster's (including mine) random subjective thought.
Perhaps true enough, but how many Japanese celebrity chefs can most folks name?

The food in Japan is truly sublime.

[Ninjahedge]

I think it has a bit to do with pride. Whenever you go to a neighborhood where face matters more than bottom line, you will get some really great food.

Unfortunately, the US is the one hardest hit by commercialism. NYC itself is starting to see the infiltration of Taco Bell, Chipoltle, Subway, Domino's, TGIF's and the whole lot of 'em. I am sure that the same is present in London.

France is known as an egotistical (pride to the point of national arrogance in some cases) nation, for better or worse. But it seems that when it comes to food, if they are not served what they think they should be, I am sure that many a place has not lasted long. (Pride can be viscious when turned inward).


As for other comments, I agree, these "VS" threads get a bit too competitive and personal. Maybe we should stop posting to them? ;) (guilty)

[Luca]

Well, since CERTAIN people are no longer posting, the threads have become more interesting and less pointlessly contentious. ;)

I agree with Ablarc's points on Japan.

On the French (you could say the same about Italy); I hope I can get across that it has nothing to do with ego (or very little) and all to do with pride in the best sense of the word.

AN example I've used many times. Tiny trattoria off the beaten track in Rome. No multilingual menus, very basic offering, no advertising. I order two dishes of pasta for myself and my (foreign) colleague. The chap comes out (outdoor tables, natch) and asks us who's having which sauce because he has two different types of grated cheese, one better for one type of sauce. This guy charged like 4-5 dollars for a plate of pasta (which, in Europe is dead cheap). It's a little neighbourhood place and we're CLEARLY not locals (I'm speaking in English to my colleague, though obviously I order in Italian). WHY does he even care what cheese we sprinkle on? HE CARES; not for the extra custom or money. He cares because it's what he does; who he is. He does this because he loves it and could (and did) spend 10 minutes explaining, upon request, his reasoning. Maybe not the 100% norm, but indicative of how we feel about quality in food.

[ablarc]

I once spent a week eating in the cheap, working class restaurants around the railroad station in Rome.

Never ate better in my life.

Not one dish that was even ho-hum.

Amazing.

[Fabrizio]

"...the cheap, working class restaurants.."

^That is what the various Italian cusines are all about. It is cooking that was not invented or perfected by chefs... in those restaurants you speak of, the ideal is to duplicate what your grandmother cooked.

----

Now getting the thread back on topic: no comparison, New York is way better than London.

--

[Alonzo-ny]

New York is way better than London.

--

Elaborate?

[Fabrizio]

Well, uh... I don't know.. it just is. Take my word for it.

[Luca]

what-ever... :rolleyes:

Though silly, I caa understand that person A might like one better than the other... I guess.

What always surprises me is how many people DESPISE either or both of them. My father in law, who is a very ncie person (a gentleman, indeed) would rather spend time in Gitmo than London, I think.

[Fabrizio]

Clearly NYC is better.

The best way I can sum it up is like this: NYC is a Mac. London is a PC.

[Ninjahedge]

I see the joke, but fail to see the analogy.

1½ chuckles.

[Minato ku]

Unfortunately, the US is the one hardest hit by commercialism. NYC itself is starting to see the infiltration of Taco Bell, Chipoltle, Subway, Domino's, TGIF's and the whole lot of 'em. I am sure that the same is present in London.

France is known as an egotistical (pride to the point of national arrogance in some cases) nation, for better or worse. But it seems that when it comes to food, if they are not served what they think they should be, I am sure that many a place has not lasted long. (Pride can be viscious when turned inward).


Still Subway, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Domino's... invaded our streets, France McDonald's are almost the most profitable in the world and the only that grew in western world. KFC in France are also some of most profitable.
France is the second consumer of ethnic food in Europe (first are the british but it is because their foods are... )

[hello1]

I came across this website and I think it gives a good portrail of the upcoming futures of both cities to draw comparison


http://www.hayesdavidson.com/portfolio/new-york.php

http://www.hayesdavidson.com/portfolio/london-intro.php

[TheBRONXKid]

Wow lol most people from london would even tell u new york is better. lol. On the most basic of levels, you hold london in one hand and new york on the other; new york simply even looks much more impressive than london. lol no comparison

New york is the fashion cap of the world
New york is the food cap of the world
Host the two most dominate financial institutions in the world( NYSE EURONEXT, NASDAQ)

New york city has modern greatness, it doesnt matter that london is older. New yorks history is more relevant today. By that account cairo,alexandria etc are greater than new york

New yorks interntional appeal is greater. Both with a presence heavy in america and overseas. London doesnt have that. On the most basic of level look at the yankees-kids and adults alike wear yankee fitteds in london. Yankees play in a sport thats not even popular in the rest of the world. Just off the strength of it being new york it gets recognized. Nothing from london is even that close to that level over here

More interesting neighborhoods, not even exclusive to just manhattan. To my understanding the guy who made this thread moved to new york. Than your argument is lol laughable u moved here for a reason

New york is the birthplace to modern cultural movements(hiphop,punkrock) that dominate pop culture and is very big over there

Nyc has greater transit-24/7 365 extensive through out the city. Its about getting from point a to point b at anytime. Your not taking a cab from queens to manhattan 3:00 in the morning.Your going to Pay that 2.25 and keep it moving. It doesnt matter that london has night buses, we already have that too.lol catch up. Get ya air conditioning fixed first before ya talk. Every new yorker got on that one train where the ac wasnt working lmao, imagine it being like that all the time

LMAO Ignorance? Point out the ignorance than. What did i say was wrong? I just had to put the eurocentrics on this site in their place. I was embarrased as a new yorker, how nyers let these ppl babble on and on without confrantation. We dont stand for that in this city, samething in a forum about the city lol. This is called WiredNEWYORK, not Wiredlondon

Nyc is the fashion cap of the world. It has more showrooms than any other city, more designers-new and old and host the biggest fashion week in the world(the superbowl if you will, of fashion)

And yes nyc does look more impressive than london. I hardly see anything impressive in london thats not atleast 2000 years old(sar). I cant begin to fathom how anyone could begin to think that london looks as impressive as nyc. Ya london may have been one of the first metropolis, but nyc is the blueprint for modern greatness

The wembley is an impressive stadium but it doesnt have the appeal of the Yankees. I dont even know who even plays there, like most americans. Whereas you will see people wearing yankee fitteds in london and across seas, in places that dont even play baseball. What part of that are ya not understanding.lol:confused:

As far as transit is concerned, its august, get some good ac first and than come back. But seriously, u mention bus systems,lol? Nyc has both an extensive bus and train system thats 24/7 365

[ZippyTheChimp]

I was embarrased as a new yorker,Yeah, me too. :rolleyes:

[Fabrizio]

Nyc is the fashion cap of the world. It has more showrooms than any other city, more designers-new and old and host the biggest fashion week in the world(the superbowl if you will, of fashion)


Au contraire, Pierre.

[scumonkey]

Point out the ignorance than.
Done- look back a page...:rolleyes:

[Alonzo-ny]

First rule of internet forums:

Never listen to someone who writes as if it's a text message.

[Ninjahedge]

The wembley is an impressive stadium but it doesnt have the appeal of the Yankees. I dont even know who even plays there, like most americans. Whereas you will see people wearing yankee fitteds in london and across seas, in places that dont even play baseball.

Here's your problem.

1. Most of the world knows who plays at Wembley. Just because the US doesn't does not mean it is automatically 'sukky'.

2. Soccer is MUCH more popular than Baseball.

3. People are wearing the NYY logo because it is kitch, not because they bear any real love for the team itself. It is different. Bringing up Londoners wearing baseball jerseys as proof that NY is better is just plain stupid.



Also, knock it of on the "lol"s. Read around the forum, this is not a chat box. Most people do not "lol" so often. It makes people not take you seriously.

Also, stop making up stuff. Saynig that London has 2000 year old buildings is just plain ignorant, not even funny. You need to research a subject before you can legitimately deride it. Saying things like London Bridge are not impressive compared to our rather boring steel spans (not that they are BAD, mind you, but come ON!!!) is just silly.


I am not saying either is better. QUite frankly your "discussion" is the very thing that we try to avoid here. Very condescending, showing signs of ignorance and intolerance and unfounded pride.

You hurt the rep of NYC more by what you say than Londons. Please stop.

[lineupguy]

I guess that the Romans built structures 2000 years ago, so he isn't that wrong is he now?

I like London a lot, and have lived in both cities for a long time and have posted my thoughts as you can read elsewhere (http://sleepny.lefora.com/2009/08/07/will-london-be-like-new-york-in-25-years/page1/). And I make the point here too - remember that London is the center of Britain, United Kingdom and England, unless I am mistaken, but New York is not the capital (capitol?) of New York State. That gives London a very very big head start in this discussion.

[Ninjahedge]

I guess that the Romans built structures 2000 years ago, so he isn't that wrong is he now?

He was making a facetious comment, if you want me to look up the dates...

http://www.europe-cities.com/en/605/uk_england/london/history/period/

"In antiquity, London was a sparsely settled rural area."

Rome may have been there, but I am not too aware of any structures they built, still standing, that are awound anymore. (I looked for them!!!, please correct me if I am wrong and show me the places you are referring to....)

Bottom line is, I was never aware that many people went to London to see buildings thar are 200+ years old. I definitely wasn't aware that that was a selling point..... :confused:


I like London a lot, and have lived in both cities for a long time and have posted my thoughts as you can read elsewhere (http://sleepny.lefora.com/2009/08/07/will-london-be-like-new-york-in-25-years/page1/). And I make the point here too - remember that London is the center of Britain, United Kingdom and England, unless I am mistaken, but New York is not the capital (capitol?) of New York State. That gives London a very very big head start in this discussion.

Actually, no it doesn't. I like NYC better than Washington DC. Sometimes a capital is not the best, or most pivital point of a nation. I am not saying that one is better than another, but I just don't agree that London being a capital gives it rank over NYC... Not enough to be worth anything anyway! ;)

[Ninjahedge]

The Romans erected fortifications around London about AD 200, which designated the city’s boundaries for the next several centuries, parts of which survive to this day. London had become a wealthy, heavily fortified city by the 4th Century. The Romans had left London by AD 410, and the Roman city was practically abandoned 40 years later. However, the city was used as a base for military operations by the Roman administration during the bloody battles against the Jutes, a Kentish tribe. Kent was abandoned in AD 456, and extensive measures were taken to repel the Saxons thereafter. London was evacuated in the 6th Century and remained in ruins for more than a generation

Ahh! Maybe 1600 years old would be a better generalization of its more prominent ruins?

[TheBRONXKid]

Here's your problem.

1. Most of the world knows who plays at Wembley. Just because the US doesn't does not mean it is automatically 'sukky'.

2. Soccer is MUCH more popular than Baseball.

3. People are wearing the NYY logo because it is kitch, not because they bear any real love for the team itself. It is different. Bringing up Londoners wearing baseball jerseys as proof that NY is better is just plain stupid.



Also, knock it of on the "lol"s. Read around the forum, this is not a chat box. Most people do not "lol" so often. It makes people not take you seriously.

Also, stop making up stuff. Saynig that London has 2000 year old buildings is just plain ignorant, not even funny. You need to research a subject before you can legitimately deride it. Saying things like London Bridge are not impressive compared to our rather boring steel spans (not that they are BAD, mind you, but come ON!!!) is just silly.


I am not saying either is better. QUite frankly your "discussion" is the very thing that we try to avoid here. Very condescending, showing signs of ignorance and intolerance and unfounded pride.

You hurt the rep of NYC more by what you say than Londons. Please stop.

Look the us is just one country, yet it exudes the most influence in pop culture in the world. If the team that plays in the wembley is not known here; than u cant put them over a team like the yankees who are both known in ny,america and worldwide

It doesnt matter if its for the love of the team or not, point is they are wearing yankee hats a team the plays in new york city 1000000 miles away. New york just exudes a more dominating presence in pop culture than london. Its laughable to say otherwise when that presence can be felt in london in different forms.

Like i said before you scream ignorance, what about my post wasnt true?

[londonlawyer]

In terms of what they offer, NY and London are equal and are the world's best.

However, London is far more beautiful than NY. New Yorkers love filth and grit. London loves spiffiness.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3150/2618384633_2fcac6f55e.jpg?v=0

This disgusting block (which is just south of Central Park) would never exist in such a prime location in London. However, New Yorkers are proud of their filth and grit.

http://i7.tinypic.com/258uv6w.jpg

[OmegaNYC]

^^^ The Bronx Kid:

Pop culture is dead, and nothing more than a cesspool. Do you really want NYC, to be the most "dominate" in that field? Besides, LA, exert more influcence on popular culture than NYC and London.

As Ninja stated, to say that NYC is more influencial because some Londoners wear Yankee caps, is just silly. Let me put it this way: I have a Hanshin Tigers shirt ( Japanese baseball team ) does that mean Osaka, has some influence on popular culture, all because some bloke, has a tee-shirt of a silly looking tiger?

The fact is: NYC is starting to lookse its grip as the "world's greatest city". In fact, the New Yorker, stated that London is the capitol of the world. (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23389580-details/London+is+the+world+capital+of+the+21st+century... +says+New+York/article.do)


BTW: Wembley Stadium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wembley_Stadium) is home to England National Football team ( no not that football :cool: )

[Fabrizio]

Look the us is just one country, yet it exudes the most influence in pop culture in the world.

Simply not true. The world does not look specifically to the US for trends and ideas as it may have decades ago. The US is certainly still influential but today, trends come and go and pop up all over the world. Last year the biggest selling pop group world-wide was Coldplay (British). Biggest grossing films last year? Harry Potter, Batman and James Bond... all three well established pop icons... 2 out of three British. In fact it could probably be argued that Harry Potter has had the biggest cultural influence on young people world-wide than any other pop creation in the last decade. And it is unapologetically very British.

You also mention:



Nyc is the fashion cap of the world. It has more showrooms than any other city, more designers-new and old and host the biggest fashion week in the world(the superbowl if you will, of fashion)

Would you please list those NY "designers-new and old " that have a world-wide influence?

If the critera is designers, showrooms, and fashion weeks... Paris is solidly #1. It is univerally considered to be the worlds fashion capital. Milan is #2 but no where near Paris.

Trends are another story though... and those can pop up anywhere. NYC is not a focal point by any means. The 2 people that had the most influence on fashion collections this year? Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni. One stationed in Washington and one in Paris.

--

[lineupguy]

^^^ The Bronx Kid:

New Yorker, stated that London is the capitol of the world. (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23389580-details/London+is+the+world+capital+of+the+21st+century... +says+New+York/article.do)



That paper was quoting from New York Magazine, not the New Yorker. And NY Magazine already published a much larger article about New York and London which I have analyzed and discussed here (http://sleepny.lefora.com/2009/08/01/sold-on-london-not-so-fast/page1/), so they have changed their mind....?

[lineupguy]

Would you please list those NY "designers-new and old " that have a world-wide influence?

Trends are another story though... and those can pop up anywhere. NYC is not a focal point by any means. The 2 people that had the most influence on fashion collections this year? Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni. One stationed in Washington and one in Paris.
--

Its a focal point for tourists who want to shop.

NY designers?

Halston, but his days are over.

Ralph Lauren?

The debate is silly anyway. I have read and written about how the London v Hong Kong debate or London v Tokyo debate is more appropriate, My article is "Will London be like New York in 25 Years" (http://sleepny.lefora.com/2009/08/07/will-london-be-like-new-york-in-25-years/page1/) if you are interested.

[londonlawyer]

...
The fact is: NYC is starting to lookse its grip as the "world's greatest city". In fact, the New Yorker, stated that London is the capitol of the world. (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23389580-details/London+is+the+world+capital+of+the+21st+century... +says+New+York/article.do)

....


Isn't that an old article?

[ablarc]

The entire discussion is old.

[londonlawyer]

I agree.

They're two of the best cities in the world.

[lineupguy]

So are Berlin, Moscow, Hong Kong, Tokyo. I thought that its not really about the best cities in the world, its about London v New York?

[Ninjahedge]

Look the us is just one country, yet it exudes the most influence in pop culture in the world. If the team that plays in the wembley is not known here; than u cant put them over a team like the yankees who are both known in ny,america and worldwide

Pop culture influence is not a pure measure of a countries importance or sway, and it is definitely not the measure of a city.

Nobody here is saying that NYC does not have world influence, but seeing someone wear a yankees cap in London does not make NYC the world leader in PC influence, no more than the Beatles release on Rock Band says Londons.


It doesnt matter if its for the love of the team or not, point is they are wearing yankee hats a team the plays in new york city 1000000 miles away. New york just exudes a more dominating presence in pop culture than london. Its laughable to say otherwise when that presence can be felt in london in different forms.

You are exaggerating again and letting us all know that you are not really researchnig to back up your opinion. The moon is less than a million miles away (and is als a song by David Byrn, but that is another subject).

You are trying to fight, not discuss.


Like i said before you scream ignorance, what about my post wasnt true?

The sky being blue does not support the price of oil in Russia. It may be "true" but it is not an all out slam-dunk when it comes to proving NY's influence worldwide. I see more people worldwide following rock bands, watching movies, or even reading (Harry Potter?) than following the Yankees, so what I am saying is that while your points may be true, in some cases, they are exaggerated and do not prove your point.


BTW, speaking sense may seem like screaming ignorance to you, but then again, I may be 1000000 miles away from you. :rolleyes:

[Flatiron]

Having returned recently from my first visit to London (a week spent with friends), there were my impressions:

First off my impression was one of a completely multicultural and complex city. The percentage of people of Indian descent as opposed to those of African descent would be the reverse of New York and I noticed fewer Asians and more Arabic people. But the vibe in general is strikingly similar.

I did not find London particularly dirty, but then I don’t find New York particularly dirty.

The people were perfectly civil, although I didn’t have much of a chance to interact and I was always wearing either fairly conservative clothes or a suit and tie. Perhaps if I looked more like a tourist it would have been different. I do not understand why people visit the world’s biggest cities attired as if they were about to go camping in the Australian outback. What the hell do you need a backpack for in Paris? And hiking shoes? In Los Angeles? Really?

There were a few sweary drunks out on Friday that I noticed, but other than that I felt safe at all times. I didn’t go out of Central London, however, and aside from the Tate Modern and the Eye, stayed on the north side of the Thames.

London’s parks are more prevalent and varied than New York’s but seem oddly plain in comparison to the sculpted effects that Vaux & Olmstead managed at Central, Prospect and Riverside Parks. One thing I did notice that was a bit depressing is how the flight plans of planes landing and Heathrow seem to cross over some of the most otherwise peaceful and green spots in London.

London’s pubs compared to New York’s bars are apples and oranges. But the pub culture seems at first glance friendlier, cozier, less pretentious and more inviting. HOWEVER, New York prices are lower and cocktails are infinitely better. The martini at Browns cost 15 quid and I could have put it in my eye. The martini at the New York Ritz costs $20—the most expensive one I have ever ordered in New York—and is three times the serving and four times as good.

London 18th century and earlier architecture obviously has it all over New York, which has only a handful of buildings that predate 1800. Big fan of Wren, Gibb, Jones, etc. Particularly loved St. James in Piccadilly. A wonderfully sparse place, with a wholesome big-barn smell and a remarkably pastoral feel. A bit surprised to find that St. Paul’s and Westminster charge entry fees, but then as the major museums don’t, this is trade-off I can live with.

London 19th and early 20th century architecture is profoundly different from New York. London likes stone, New York likes glass. London likes walls, New York likes windows. London heaps up ornament like it’s going out of style. In New York it DID go out of style. For a London reader of this site—compare Selfridge’s (where the consultant was Burnham, an American architect and designer of the Flatiron Building) with Harrods for a case-by-case study of the differences. I tend to be a follower of Sullivan and Wright, so prefer the New York developments, but central London is a top-heavy feast for the eyes, particularly Mayfair and the surrounding area.

New York 20th century architecture has it all over London. The only recent additions that I would call exceptions to the everything-in-post-war-UK-must-be-crap rule are 20 St. Mary Ax, which I unfortunately did not have a chance to see up close but which looks smashing on the skyline and the London Eye, which I thought was ridiculous until I saw it in real life. It’s a masterwork. Other than that I was unimpressed and not infrequently disgusted.

I prefer New York’s museums to London’s on the whole. The Metropolitan is sort of like the British Museum, the National Gallery, the Tate Britain and the Tate Modern all under one roof—and then there are MoMA, the Guggenheim, the Frick, the Brooklyn, etc. One museum in London that I thought was outstanding was the Wallace, which is a remarkable collection housed in an immaculate townhouse. I also enjoyed the V&A and the wonderful collection and café at the National Gallery. Only took a quick glance at the Natural History Museum, which is one of the world’s great 19th century landmarks. I also enjoyed an opening at the Royal Academy of new British art, which was much more interesting and varied than that at either of the Tates. But New York museums tend to be better planned, better lit and do interpretation and historical context far more carefully.

I am more used to the New York idea of the hotel as a semi-public building. New York hotels tend to be larger than their London counterparts and contain more and grander public rooms. Compare the Ritz to the Plaza or the Savoy to the Waldorf. However20I didn’t stay at hotels in London—I stayed with friends. And naturally I don’t stay in hotels in New York. So. Can’t really compare the service past the bar (see above)!

I liked the London Tube for being frequent, fairly quiet in comparison to New York and for the electronic displays that give you updates and other information. I disliked it for lack of express service, closing at 1 AM and for the idiots continually making announcements that some line miles from where I was had “excellent service.” The trains in London are prettier but I stand 6’3”. And I was surprised to not see any tile-work or ornament of the kind found at New York’s older stations. Granted, that tile-work is most frequently obscured by 100 years of grime.

The cabs in London are roomier and the drivers are friendlier and know wher e they’re going. The cost of the cabs in London leads one to suspect that they are powered by liquid diamonds. The cab ride from Notting Hill to Heathrow was quoted to me as 120 L. I took the cab to the nearest tube station and rode the train out and it still cost me the equivalent of $30. Also I do like the fact that NYC cabs have credit card payment as a standard feature and that the new cabs are electric.

The London skyline is best seen from the Thames or from the South Embankment. The London Eye is wonderful, but the view of London from the London Eye makes the city look like a dish of chopped liver. Skyline from the river = very grand. From the air = not so much.

St. Pancras is a great building and again, profoundly different from Grand Central. Sheds vs. halls—and Gothic facades vs. classical structure. However, the huge statue of two yuppies dry humping has got to go. Charing Cross and Victoria were ugly and the only places in central London that looked actually filthy and dangerous.

Buckingham Palace does nothing for me, ditto the governmental architecture, except, of course, for Parliament, which is wonderful. I feel the same way about most bureaucratic architecture the world over, though, DC included.

I am unsure why every phone box in London—all five of them—is coated with pictures of ugly girls exposing their naked breasts.

Perhaps London has more five star restaurants. The mid-level stuff, however, is still pretty bad. The café at the National was the best meal I had in London followed by a quaint place opposite St. Stephen’s Tower, which had a delicious leek soup. Add to this the fact that all the grocery places seem to shut down at 11 PM or earlier and let’s just say I ate a lot of pre-made sandwiches.

Did not have the time to visit Chelsea, Soho, much of Fitzrovia or Bloomsbury past the British Museum. Would like to have spent more time in The City and exploring London’s churches. Did not have a chance to catch a play, a concert or visit a club. Wished I had more time to meet the people. Will definitely be back.

I do think that London is a city that is inclined to grow on you whereas you either like New York or you do not.

[ablarc]

^ Thanks, I enjoyed that.

[Fabrizio]

Me too. Interesting observations.

[lineupguy]

I do think that London is a city that is inclined to grow on you whereas you either like New York or you do not.Interesting read.

For those of us who didn't grow up in the outer boroughs, I think you could say this about New York, but it's hard to get a perspective if you are an outsider.

More than New York, London has its little parts, each with its High Street, that people seldom seem leave unless they have to - either because there is no need, or the transport is expensive, or because they simply do not want to. Whereas in Manhattan, taking the subway to the Lincoln Centre or Union Square or City Hall is not really an effort at all.

London does not have the same variety of "popular-destination" cities within the same area like New York does. Westchester, CT, RI, Boston, Philly, Atlantic City, and Long Island are all a short and relatively inexpensive train ride away - and within the same country. Its really not that easy for a Londoner to get to Paris for a weekend as you might think it is.

As I have written elsewhere: (http://sleepny.lefora.com/2009/08/07/will-london-be-like-new-york-in-25-years/)


There is more to this debate than meets the eye, as London is often the only choice that big city seeking Englishmen and women have. Its either that or what exactly? Glasgow? Edinburgh? Manchester? Often the elites of London don't regard that as an honest choice.

So in England there seems to be a great concentration of everything in London, with the notable exceptions of the universities (Oxford and Cambridge - in the minds of many in England, they are the only two universities of any great worth - another anomaly that New York does not suffer from).

[Alonzo-ny]

More than New York, London has its little parts, each with its High Street,

I agree with this, but not:


that people seldom seem leave unless they have to - either because there is no need, or the transport is expensive, or because they simply do not want to. Whereas in Manhattan, taking the subway to the Lincoln Centre or Union Square or City Hall is not really an effort at all.

I really don't know what your evidence for that is. Of course people in London go to the West End for a show or the O2 for a concert, or any other comparable areas to what you mentioned.


Its really not that easy for a Londoner to get to Paris for a weekend as you might think it is.

Two hours on the Eurostar isn't hard.

[futurecity]

The thing about London is that they are willing to invest in large transport projects -- NYC will suffer until it gets its act together. I mean, where is NY's subway upgrade project in comparison to London's? Where is NYc's crossrail or heathrow express?

London made an error though in giving up on the tram idea and their taxis need upgrading to eco-friendly standards. NY taxis are far ahead in that area.

[futurecity]

In terms of what they offer, NY and London are equal and are the world's best.

However, London is far more beautiful than NY. New Yorkers love filth and grit. London loves spiffiness.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3150/2618384633_2fcac6f55e.jpg?v=0

This disgusting block (which is just south of Central Park) would never exist in such a prime location in London. However, New Yorkers are proud of their filth and grit.

http://i7.tinypic.com/258uv6w.jpg

Yes, London has more way more old charm than NYC, and is more villagey in feel given its low rise stature. This fact gives many wealthy areas there a very livable feel. London has plenty of crap though right in the center of the city that you must post also to give a more even account. On the other hand, more ornament in London is equalled IMO by the hyper dense and modernity of NY and its long sight lines. This does give london the edge in coziness factor i admit which is why it appears more genteel than the big brash manhattan. Also, London's streets tend to be narrow and often the streetscape is ''townish'' compared to the huge big city metrolopolis feel of NYC, similar to the wide and futuristic sreets of Tokyo. This often means that the city feels smaller than it is and just nicer. I'd take London for beauty in certain areas, but NY for that hypermetropolis feel similar to Asian cities that London doesn't have at all -- i've been there 5 times.

[lineupguy]

The taxis in NYC are what set it apart.

The subways are dirty but roomier and compared to London are very inexpensive. Thats also a big difference - more than you would think. Many people in both cities are simply not going to spend the money unless they have to. In NY it is a lot easier.

The subway system in NY is a lot more linear than London and one line will take you to most of the city's highlights - just take a look at the 1 - from South Ferry to Harlem and a lot more.

The subway in NY runs all night. NYers are spared the sight of vomiting party goers keen to finish their drinks and get the last train home.

Not many Londoners are using the Eurostar to get away for the weekend - I thought that it was in bankruptcy or had some kind of financial support - or was it just out of action for a few months because of a fire - not sure. But the point I was making was the lack of international cities in or around London that are as easy to get to.

However, I note your tone and have learnt one thing - not to argue any point with you too vigorously! ;)

[Alonzo-ny]

I agree with you on a few points.

Taxis in NY are way cheaper which is a huge plus however London cabbies have a legendary status for knowing their way around which is more than can be said about NY cabbies. Trying to get a cab to W'Burg was a problem on many occasions for me. I don't think that justifies the price though.

The subway. London's is much cleaner and more frequent. I value this alot though I do wish they were a bit bigger. As for NY 24/7 thing, it isn't as good as it sounds. I almost never took it home as it is horrid waiting ages for the limited service in the late hours. I was on one of the lines that stayed open 24/7 as well, not all of them do. 24/7 sounds nice but it isn't as good as it sounds.

As for having close cities the only ones of merit you listed was Philly and Boston. I fail to see how having Westchester, LI, RI or AC are big selling points. London has a few small cities within the same time frame of travel including Paris and all of Europe is only a cheap flight away.

[lineupguy]

Yeah.

I guess you are right.

AC, Long Island, CT - they sure aren't for everyone.

What was I thinking.

Sorry.

http://www.zarklimo.com/site/Portals/0/atlantic-city-casinos-hotels-2.jpg


http://www.courant.com/media/photo/2005-06/18034142.jpg

[Alonzo-ny]

What are those pictures supposed to prove? The AC one would impress me if I hadn't read this thread (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=295235#post295235), I know all about it's decline.

[lineupguy]

Yes Alonzo

You are right. As you say What are those pictures supposed to prove? The AC one would impress you if you hadn't read this thread (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=295235#post295235), and now you know all about it's decline.

Im sorry.

Be very careful about changing the content of my posts.

Respectfully

lineupguy

[Fabrizio]

Atlantic City.

Londoners don't know what they're missing.

-----

London to Paris in 2 hours.

New York to AC? : 2 1/2 hours.

http://www.atlanticcitynj.com/mediaonline/whats_new_detail.aspx?NewsID=10

[Alonzo-ny]

A/C sounds comparable to Blackpool in England on steroids from what I've read in the AC thread.

[lineupguy]

Trust me, theres no such thing as glitzy and glamorous in its own kitsch way like AC anywhere near Blackpool or London.

You are safe.

[Fabrizio]

The last time AC was glamourous was when newly crowned Miss America 1959 rode down the boardwalk in an Oldsmobile.

[lofter1]

No Oldsmobile in sight, but watch (http://www.babelgum.com/browser.php#play/SEARCH_SIMILAR,clipID:112003,includeClip:true,orde r:MOST_RELEVANT/0,112003) Mississippi's Mary Ann Mobley (http://www.missamerica.org/our-miss-americas/1950/1959.aspx) get the crown.

[Ninjahedge]

Two things though.

Most transit is geared towards getting TO NYC not away from it. I have found this in many ways, living right by a rail station that does not seem to like to take you many places unless you go to NYC first, THEN go somewhere else...

NYC IS the main destination for travel. Most people in NYC do not go to AC (anymore) or Philly. Hell, most do not go to Boston (although I like it, even 3-4 hours away).

Second is AC. AC is glitz and glam and a bunch of isolated casinos. I went there twice and was not impressed either time. I did not go behind the casinos and look at the town (which the thread listed says is none to welcoming), and the Casinos themselves offer nothing to a man like myself that considers Gambling a colossal waste of time and money (knowing math really hurts your enjoyment of playing something you know is stacked).

Would other people like that? Maybe, but it just does not have the same old-school charm of a large boardwalk, open to the sea, with attractions. It is like the sea is secondary now.


But that's about it. YMMV. I would much rather be able to hop a 2hr to Paris than a 2 hour drive to AC anyday.

[futurecity]

NY is very centralised in comparison to cities such as Paris and even London (lower density center than NY, higher density over a wider area for longer), which have more jobs outside the center of the city -- just look at the way all commuter lines, they all go into manhattan without flow through. If NY implemented some type of orbital rail or flowthrough (connections through manhattan and linking up of rail systems) it would be easier to move labor around the region. This would in turn make overcrowding in manhattan dissipate as more jobs could be concetrated in new suburban nodes that would densify. This would again make the metro area more interesting as more commercial centers with good density are developed. As for now, it is too hard for LI'ers or NJ'ers etc to connect to areas that are not manhattan resulting in fewer 2nd tier job nodes outside of manhattan/downtown brooklyn. It would also result in less traffic congestion in manhattan, since suburban drivers wouldn't be as inclined to drive through it to get to another destination given good rail links. NY needs to create a better suburb-suburb rail system as the region is too low density sprawl. This would encourage nodal transit development.

[MidtownGuy]

YMMV.

I learn so many forum-talk acronyms from you.
When I read a post of yours it helps to have an open window with urban dictionary loaded.

[futurecity]

I learn so many forum-talk acronyms from you.
When I read a post of yours it helps to have an open window with urban dictionary loaded.

Hmm....

[MidtownGuy]

...so anyway, I looked up YMMV and it stands for "your mileage may vary".
I like it.

I've never shopped for a car and don't watch tv commercials so maybe I should have known that.

[londonlawyer]

Personally, I try to limit my acronyms to the following two:

MILF and POS.

They're universal.

[Ninjahedge]

Some are more prevalent than others, and some rarely have any other meaning than what you see.

Quite honestly, I have to look up some when I am reading stuff, especially with semi-literate texters/posters. Things like BFF, DH, DW and other permutations (best friends forever, dear husband, dear wife) seem to be prevalent around sites that are a bit less tech or news oriented (LIweddings.com, citydata.com, etc).

Hell, some of the techie ones need a translation of the translation!

But I am glad I can expand your knowledge of online acronyms. You can now text more efficiently! ;) :rolleyes: