Posted 3 years ago with NotesPaul Graham offers a nuanced comparison of what life is like in different American cities, mainly focusing on New York, the bay area and the Boston area.
Reading the essay really made me think about how much I have been influenced by New York. I have always noticed that I enjoy every peaceful break I get from the city (I spend more than half my weekends away from it), though I get sucked right back in whenever I’m back. It’s not a chase after the power of money, from my perspective, but all that results from it - excessive materialism and consumerism that is just the culture.
Fred Wilson describes NYC as “the never ending chase of “what’s next” whether it be art, music, media, money, shopping, food, nightlife, etc, etc.”
The longer a stretch of time that I spend in New York, the more I end up chasing after these things as well. It takes a certain conscientiousness to self-motivate toward what I feel really matters. Would it be different in a different city? Inevitably. But more powerful than trying to find the right city would be to make oneself strong enough to balance it out.
