The Big Apple........

[Mega]

Duck & Cover!
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...sEnabled=false

I don't think i bother with a visit, i was told many moons ago NOT to visit the East coast if your a Limey...fly to the West.........i wonder what LA is like?
Mike

[mooncliff]

Re: The Big Apple........

Last I read, about 10 years ago, there were 90,000 assault shootings in the US per year. That excludes suicides, police shootings, and accidental shootings. 90,000 people were deliberately shot that year in the US.
Why is the murder rate going down, though? You have to die for it to be murder, and the emergency rooms in the US get better and better all the time a keeping people from dying. People who could not be saved 50 years ago can be saved now.

Here is a list of firearms death rates by state, but I think this is for all causes.
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri...e-per-100-000/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...crime-us-state

[c1ue]

Re: The Big Apple........

Why is the murder rate going down, though? You have to die for it to be murder, and the emergency rooms in the US get better and better all the time a keeping people from dying. People who could not be saved 50 years ago can be saved now.

This is a very interesting point, and goes along well also with the many documented cases of 'classification fraud' - where murders and so forth are converted into suicides and the like for the purposes of improving crime statistics.

[BadJuju]

Re: The Big Apple........

..fly to the West.........i wonder what LA is like?
Mike

Forget LA, go to San Diego! I much prefer NYC, though. Anyway, LA sucks. It has all of the problems of NYC, but none of the positives. And then it has its own problems.

[lektrode]

Re: The Big Apple........

Forget LA, go to San Diego! I much prefer NYC, though. Anyway, LA sucks. It has all of the problems of NYC, but none of the positives. And then it has its own problems.

curious what the 'positives' of nyc are?
beyond the entertainment and cultural opportunities, that is.
oh yeah and the bonus/earnings potential of the finance arena (which is about same as hollywood's) - pls leave that out as well.

[BadJuju]

Re: The Big Apple........

Depends on what you are looking for. Entertainment and cultural opportunities is huge, but simple economic ones, like much reduced energy consumption, is another.

[c1ue]

Re: The Big Apple........

Depends on what you are looking for. Entertainment and cultural opportunities is huge, but simple economic ones, like much reduced energy consumption, is another.

New York is FIRE central: extremely high housing costs, not to mention the massive role finance plays in the NY city and state economy.

Not exactly conducive to replication elsewhere.

[BadJuju]

Re: The Big Apple........

New York is FIRE central: extremely high housing costs, not to mention the massive role finance plays in the NY city and state economy.

Not exactly conducive to replication elsewhere.

Oh, definitely, but that doesn't detract from the fact that there are parts of it that are really quite good. Anyway, I was just trying to say that LA really sucks and that you should just swing 80 miles south to go to San Diego instead. Much nicer place. Gas Lamp District, ahoy!!!

[c1ue]

Re: The Big Apple........

Oh, definitely, but that doesn't detract from the fact that there are parts of it that are really quite good.

For the amount of money necessary to live in Manhattan, you can have a really good life pretty much anywhere.

[BadJuju]

Re: The Big Apple........

For the amount of money necessary to live in Manhattan, you can have a really good life pretty much anywhere.

I disagree with that. Some people thrive in small towns or rural areas. I, on the other hand, love big cities. NYC is a great place because there is so much there to do and so many people to do them with.

[c1ue]

Re: The Big Apple........

I disagree with that. Some people thrive in small towns or rural areas. I, on the other hand, love big cities. NYC is a great place because there is so much there to do and so many people to do them with.

My point wasn't a question of preference for large or small towns.

My point was, the income required to live in Manhattan would yield a pretty lush lifestyle pretty much anywhere in the world, much less the US.

[cjppjc]

Re: The Big Apple........

I grew up in NYC. I loved it. I am older now, and live in New Jersey. I'm an hour from the bridge, so I don't go in that often anymore. NYC gets alot of penis envy from folks around the country. Always remember NYC took it for the country on 9/11.

[BadJuju]

Re: The Big Apple........

My point was, the income required to live in Manhattan would yield a pretty lush lifestyle pretty much anywhere in the world, much less the US.

Ah, that is true, but Manhattan is only one part of NYC. It is much cheaper to live in the other boroughs.

[astonas]

Re: The Big Apple........

I grew up in NYC. I loved it. I am older now, and live in New Jersey. I'm an hour from the bridge, so I don't go in that often anymore. NYC gets alot of penis envy from folks around the country. Always remember NYC took it for the country on 9/11.

Eh, it might be envy from some, but I suspect that for most of the country, it's more of an indifference. NYC may embody America for some - but for the most part, it is only to the people who live there. In my experience, people in the midwest think that THEY are the embodiment of "real" America, and the same for California, and Texas, and the south, and generally for people who live anywhere else in the country. Come to think of it, perhaps what most embodies America is the same local-boosterism lampooned in Sinclair Lewis' "Babbitt", in which the title character plugs for his local "Zenith" whenever he can. Those who place special value on any given place are free to move there, and for the most part, already have. Those that haven't moved, generally don't sit around pining to live in New York, or anywhere else for that matter. It just doesn't get thought about that much, really.

And as for 9/11, I'm not sure that "taking if for the country" is the fairest way to describe it. It took a hit because it symbolized a certain ethos of financial bravado - which much of the rest of the country is as likely to reject as it is to embrace. People rallied 'round after the event. But that was more out of a sense of being under attack than any particular validation of NYC's values. If Chicago, San Francisco, or Boston had been hit, people would have rallied 'round in the same manner, and it wouldn't have been an endorsement of those cities' values as being particularly "American" either. And let's not forget that Washington DC's Capital Building and Pentagon were also targets in the attacks. NYC was simply the one where the attack was most "successful".

The attacks were a tragedy, and for my part I think it cheapens the loss of life that occurred on that day, and the heroism of the firefighters who ran into the buildings, to use it to justify a special status for the city in which part of the tragedy occurred. Those lives are far too valuable to be bandied about in a cheap local-boosterim pissing contest. Those lives weren't taken because they were New Yorkers. They were taken because they were Americans. The tragedy isn't less for the families of the people who died in D.C., or who were in the airplanes that crashed, than it is for those who were working in NYC at the time. To use 9/11 to claim NYC is in some way better is to forget this, and to denigrate their memory.

I'm glad you loved NYC. But please don't use 9/11 to claim that it is better, or that others' ambivalence to your local area is a result of "penis envy". It is demeaning, and a good example of the self-centered attitude of entitlement that repels so many away from the region.

[flintlock]

Re: The Big Apple........

Eh, it might be envy from some, but I suspect that for most of the country, it's more of an indifference. NYC may embody America for some - but for the most part, it is only to the people who live there. In my experience, people in the midwest think that THEY are the embodiment of "real" America, and the same for California, and Texas, and the south, and generally for people who live anywhere else in the country. Come to think of it, perhaps what most embodies America is the same local-boosterism lampooned in Sinclair Lewis' "Babbitt", in which the title character plugs for his local "Zenith" whenever he can. Those who place special value on any given place are free to move there, and for the most part, already have. Those that haven't moved, generally don't sit around pining to live in New York, or anywhere else for that matter. It just doesn't get thought about that much, really.

And as for 9/11, I'm not sure that "taking if for the country" is the fairest way to describe it. It took a hit because it symbolized a certain ethos of financial bravado - which much of the rest of the country is as likely to reject as it is to embrace. People rallied 'round after the event. But that was more out of a sense of being under attack than any particular validation of NYC's values. If Chicago, San Francisco, or Boston had been hit, people would have rallied 'round in the same manner, and it wouldn't have been an endorsement of those cities' values as being particularly "American" either. And let's not forget that Washington DC's Capital Building and Pentagon were also targets in the attacks. NYC was simply the one where the attack was most "successful".

The attacks were a tragedy, and for my part I think it cheapens the loss of life that occurred on that day, and the heroism of the firefighters who ran into the buildings, to use it to justify a special status for the city in which part of the tragedy occurred. Those lives are far too valuable to be bandied about in a cheap local-boosterim pissing contest. Those lives weren't taken because they were New Yorkers. They were taken because they were Americans. The tragedy isn't less for the families of the people who died in D.C., or who were in the airplanes that crashed, than it is for those who were working in NYC at the time. To use 9/11 to claim NYC is in some way better is to forget this, and to denigrate their memory.

I'm glad you loved NYC. But please don't use 9/11 to claim that it is better, or that others' ambivalence to your local area is a result of "penis envy". It is demeaning, and a good example of the self-centered attitude of entitlement that repels so many away from the region.

Good post!