Urbanism: Why Is New York City So Popular?

 (Drivebycuriosity) - Amazon `s decision to build one of their new headquarters in New York City gets a lot of attention. But the E-commerce powerhouse is not alone, competitor Google will expand their New York office space, giving them room for nearly 20,000 staff in the city (reuters). And all over the city are classy new residential towers growing into the air (visual).

Apparently New York City belongs to the superstar cities. According to the consulting firm McKinsey superstar cities share several common characteristics: "In addition to capturing a greater share of income and pulling away from peers, superstars exhibit relatively higher levels of digitization; greater labor skill and innovation intensity; more connections to global flows of trade, finance, and services; and more intangible assets than do their peers" (mckinsey).

I live since 2012 in Manhattan and I am fascinated by the metropolis. The place is expensive, extremely loud and very dirty - especially when compared with the clean and tidy German town Bonn, where I had lived before for more than 2 decades. The US metropolis is also very crowded and might be more my dangerous. But there are so many advantages. The biggest plus in my eyes is the huge variety.  New York  gives her citizens & visitors  ubiquitous choices. I believe that the huge selection raises the quality of life. It increases the chance to find exactly what you want and makes your life more entertaining.

New York has more of everything - and often in a walkable distance. You find there myriads of groceries, shops for clothes, furniture, kitchen equipment - ore anything  else - and the next shop is much much closer, a benefit from the high density. New York City is full with restaurants which cater almost any taste and serve every cuisine of the world in different varieties. Going there is almost like traveling thousands of miles to very far regions.  New York`s supply of culture & entertainment is outstanding. The city has an impressive accumulation of gorgeous museums like MoMa, Whitney, Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Museum and other collections. There are clusters of art galleries which offer a huge spectrum of mostly contemporary art. There are countless occasions to discover artists and to experience the pulse of the art world. In New York City almost any day somewhere is an opening reception for a new and interesting exhibition. Often these events  are parties where you can meet a lot of cool people.

The city offers top-tier universities and other schools and hosts one of the world leading opera houses and myriads of theater stages to satisfy almost any taste for ambitious entertainment and mental enrichment. Every day there some dozens of music events from operas over philharmonic concerts to different strands of jazz, rock music and pop. And there are many cinema theater which not just play the latest block buster, you can see a lot of independent & foreign language movies which are neglected in the countryside. There are plenty of nightclubs, cafes, bars, cinemas and other leisure places. The high density of the city - and the short ways - also makes it easier to host and to attend parties.

I also enjoy the architecture. Ok, New York City cannot compete anymore with the skyscrapers of Shanghai or Dubai. But the US metropolis has a fascinating mixture of old and new and there a legions of buildings with interesting styles. Woody Allen praised - in the begin on his movie "Manhattan"- the "hustle bustle of the crowds and the traffic" and claimed that "New York meant beautiful women".

Welcome to New York City!