You are saying that NYC is an incubator for things that only work in super-dense urban areas, and Palo Alto is a very different environment where density-driven

You are saying that NYC is an incubator for things that only work in super-dense urban areas, and Palo Alto is a very different environment where density-driven things don't work? I have an impression that most of the rest of the world (that has discretionary spending you might salivate over) lives in cities that resemble NYC density much more than they resemble Silicon Valley endless low-density sprawl. Let's find some numbers. I compiled the following list of the world's 20 richest cities as of 2005 (1) and next to each I have listed its population density rank and people/sqkm. Tokyo 50 4750, New York 114 2050, Los Angeles 90 2750, Chicago 126 1500, Paris 69 3550, London 43 5100, Osaka 38 6400, Mexico City 27 8400, Philadelphia 155 1100, DC 250+, Boston 176 900, Dallas 148 1150, Buenos Aires 46 4950, Hong Kong ~36 (not listed in same data sheet as it is a "country") 6349, San Francisco/Oakland 104 2350, Atlanta 203 700, Houston 149 1150, Miami 121 1700, Sao Paulo 25 9000, Seoul 6 16700, (edit: couldn't get these lines to break no matter what, so just comma-delimited them) As of 2000, Mountain View had a density of 2264/sqkm, placing it actually HIGHER than New York. What? You would spend half your life on Caltrans in Mountain View with no car. In NYC you would spend half your life looking for a parking place. I don't get it. Does anyone have more meaningful numbers? 1: http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/richest-cities-2005.html http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/richest-cities-2005.htm...