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I just moved from Seattle to NYC after 5 years, and although it's only been a few weeks -- it's been nice to be in a city where there are other dominant industr
by fortes 19y ago
I just moved from Seattle to NYC after 5 years, and although it's only been a few weeks -- it's been nice to be in a city where there are other dominant industries other than technology.
San Francisco (and to a lesser extent, Seattle) does a great job of attracting the best and brightest technical people from around the world ... but that doesn't make for a very intellectually diverse set of people (both socially and professionally).
Even though I've only been here for a few weeks, I've been very impressed with just how many very smart, accomplished people I've met that are outside the tech industry -- that all comes from the fact that New York being the city to be in for a variety of fields (finance, media, advertising, fashion)
For me, it's a great lifestyle benefit that I wasn't getting in Seattle.
- gibsonf1 19y agoHave you been to San Francisco? This is a very diverse city, from nationalities to political persuasion, etc. The tech community is definitely in the minority here.
- tptacek 19y agoI think it would be amusing to many of us to see you defend the argument about San Francisco's diverse political persuasions. I suppose there probably is a distinction to be drawn between crony machine liberalism and impotent outrage liberalism.
- fortes 19y agoI've been to San Francisco several times, and enjoyed it (I was deciding between SF and NYC for my move). I don't disagree that there's a fair amount of diversity -- however, it just doesn't compare to NYC, totally different ball game (just like SF's tech community is in a different league than Seattle's).
- ken 19y agoIt depends on the fields you're interested in. Seattle feels just as diverse as NYC to me, just in different ways. If you're into finance, advertising, and fashion, NYC is hard to beat. Seattle, OTOH, wins big at mountain climbing (we have mountains nearby), aviation (we have Boeing nearby), and martial arts (we have Japan nearby), for example. It's also a hotspot for medicine, microbrews, and certain kinds of music. I've been to NYC a few times, and if you're into the things they do well, I'm sure it's heaven. But if you're not, it's just another big city where people talk about boring things like finance and fashion.
- fortes 19y agoI will definitely miss Seattle's easy access to nature (along with the views and climate, which are amazing) ... but that's also part of the reason NYC isn't a permanent move :)