
Cities and Ambition - mqt
http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html
======
rokhayakebe
I think the biggest shift in deciding where to live is happening "online"
rather than "offline". I am an online nomad.

I never lived and never will live in MySpace. I do not like the MySpacians
message (Hey lets try to see who has more friends and hookups).

I sometimes spend time at Facebook. I lived there for a little while until I
realized I am not so much into keeping in touch and I had no friends in the
few hours I spent in college. When they open their borders, that's when I
found that I do not like the Facebookies message (You should throw more pies
and send more kisses)

I vacationed at Twitter, but it is not really my cup of tea. I still dont get
their message (Life is a popularity contest).

So Where do I live? Well, I live mostly in HN. Although I sometimes get into
arguments with the habitants, I have yet to find another city that beats the
intelligence, vibe, energy and support I witness here. I take a daily ride to
Techcrunch City and NYT, but I make sure I come back home to HN and mingle
with the people who live here.

~~~
ntoshev
It is good, but still low-bandwidth. Perhaps the reason for compulsively
refreshing the homepage is that we just can't get enough.

Any suggestions about how to make better online environments for people who
care about similar things?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=202096>

~~~
ntoshev
No, I don't think this helps. Yes, you get more bandwidth, but the signal-to-
noise ratio drops.

------
ardit33
PG fails to mention that Cambridge (and Sommerville, the emerging
hipster/cheaper alternative) is like an island in the middle of a puritan
city.

Boston, in large, give the message of "old money rules". Where you were born,
where is your summer house (Martha Vineyard, Cape Cod, or Maine?), seems to
the most important thing. And coorporates rule, so you have to play by their
game: meaning you have to be one of them, in the boys club, have some gray
hair, be decent at golf (or pretend to like it), in order to be considered
good at busniness.

Boston/Cambridge is great if you are in academia, or doing research, but doing
anything practical, or startup it is not that place to be.

Young ambitious people move somewhere else, the rest is stuck in academia, or
living the 9-5 life clinging to the coorporate life, maybe they will manage up
in the ladder (or rat race).

Adding, I also have met very smart people in Cambridge, but talk is cheap, and
there is a lot of it in there. Everybody has an opinion about everything, but
when it comes to action, there isn't much.

~~~
pg
I _wish_ the spirit of Boston were anything so romantic as "old money rules."
Actually there are hardly any of those people left. The Thurston Howells have
all died, and their trustafarian kids have long since moved to Berkeley or
Boulder. Except for Cambridge, Boston doesn't send any message at all that I
can pick up.

~~~
icky
Boston says, "Ride the T, don't buy liquor on Sunday, and incorporate Dunkin'
Donuts into at least two meals a day."

~~~
SwellJoe
I totally felt the Dunkin' Donuts part of the message. I ate Dunkin' for
breakfast twice while visiting. Who knew they served bagels?

------
byrneseyeview
"New York tells you, above all: you should make more money. There are other
messages too, of course. You should be hipper. You should be better looking.
But the clearest message is that you should be richer.

What I like about Boston (or rather Cambridge) is that the message there is:
you should be smarter. You really should get around to reading all those books
you've been meaning to."

From two years ago here:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070102025129/http://paulgraham....](http://web.archive.org/web/20070102025129/http://paulgraham.infogami.com/blog/)
:

"I find every ambitious town sends you a message. New York tells you "you
should make more money." LA tells you "you should be better looking." Rome
tells you "you should dress better." London tells you "you should be hipper."
The Bay Area tells you "you should live better." And Cambridge tells you "you
should read some of those books you've been meaning to.""

~~~
pg
Yes, bits of this came from that experiment in blogging I tried with Infogami.
I thought of mentioning that in one of those prefatory remarks, but mentioning
it would have taken more words than the bits in question.

~~~
byrneseyeview
I don't object! It was just interesting to see the gap between an early draft
and a finished copy.

~~~
anirbas
I found it cool as well, and appreciate you linking to that. It's somewhat
inspiring to see how someone begins to think about a topic; leads me to stop
rejecting my early ideas so ruthlessly.

------
subwindow
I wrote this four months ago in an email to a friend of mine:

"San Francisco is definitely a great area, and you should at least visit some
day. There's a vibe there that's completely different from anywhere else I've
ever been. It is hard to explain. You just go there and you feel it. Things
seem possible out there that would be laughed at here. That's the best way I
can put it.

Every city that I've been to has a certain feel to it. New York is rude and
busy. Portland is relaxed and thoughtful. San Francisco is ambitious and free-
spirited. Atlanta is comfortable and complacent. Atlanta's feel was good for
growing up, and it is one that's good for growing old if you're willing to
play it conservatively and live a life of moderate wealth and complacency. But
if you're not, you should go to a city that has a better feel for what your
goals are at that stage in your life.

Does that make sense? I'm by no means trying to convince you to go to San
Francisco, but for me it was important that I travelled around and discovered
the city that had the right feel for me. Portland was very close, and San
Francisco is nearly spot on. I have no doubt you'll be somewhat different.
Give it a try though, eh?"

Its like PG read my email and decided to write an essay on it.

~~~
Prrometheus
Have you been to Austin? I am very interested in going there and would like
your take on it.

~~~
initself
Austin tells you 'you should be weird'.

~~~
jbenz
It also tells you to have a beer, tube the river, and then join a band.

------
jbenz
I live in Columbus, OH and as I read PG's essay I was wondering what Columbus
tells you. And seriously, I just kept thinking about one thing: "You should
play college football."

College football is king in the Bus, and the players and coaches are our
royalty.

It's kind of a scary thought, but I'm as big a Buckeye fan as anyone else, so
I'm partly to blame. But I also admit that I don't want to live in a place
where this is the best thing we have to offer.

The truth is, I love Columbus for all many reasons: close friends, a great
job, the Wexner Center, and of course, Buckeye football. It's a scary thought
to pick up and move to SV. I often think about Spielberg, Lucas, Kaufman, and
Coppola all hanging out together in the 70s. I desperately want to be a part
of a group like that, but for startups.

~~~
BrandonM
Being an OSU student, I have to agree with you, but to be fair, I think
Columbus also has some more interesting things to say, depending on where you
live.

Brewery district: You should drink better beer.

Short north: You should be more artistic (in terms of both art and
"sophisticated" things like wine-tasting).

Anywhere near High Street: You should hear more live music.

Honestly, Columbus has a thriving music, art, and gay community, and I think
that makes it kind of a cool city. There's this very strange dynamic of party-
going OSU students, diverse foreign-exchange OSU students, sports-crazy
Ohioans, business-minded corporate-types, and aesthetic art aficionados.

Maybe, most of all, the message of Columbus is that diversity is good.

~~~
edvince
Diversity is never good, though. That's such a lame stereotype of our time.
Diverse cultures are dying cultures. But I agree, that's totally the message
of Columbus. It's trying so hard to be the most "diverse" and "gay-friendly"
place in the Midwest. But the gayness is tired and such a stereotype. It's
like, "Enough already!" You'd never see straights behaving like that, or
parading around so obsessively. It's gross. I shouldn't be required to like,
accept, or tolerate it -- because I don't.

------
maxklein
Duuude, Mister Graham, I've never even heard of this Cambridge, and I
seriously doubt it is the intellectual capital of the world. And you know what
- you are not qualified to judge. You've not been to Urumuqi, Jenin, Port
Harcourt or Bahia, how can you make a judgement based on having been in two
cities?

And furthermore, I take offense at the suggestion that American universities
produce the best students. In general, the American engineers I have met have
been less skilled than their German counterparts.

American universities produce people with ambition, but that probably has to
do more with the American culture than any particular school policy.

Cities do not mould people. People of a certain sort hear about the reputation
of a city and they flock there. It's like people hear of china town and go
there for chinese food, and pretty soon lots of people are selling chinese
food there, because it is where people go for chinese food.

A city influences people, but in a very complex manner. It's an animal
ecosystem, and there are hundreds of factors at work that modify and regulate
pull and push of a city.

You are seeing cambridge from your peculiar focus. That's not the real
cambridge. Imagine some black bum you drive by, imagine how he sees cambridge.
For him its not a place of ideas. There is no push towards reading.

What you term the 'city' is the social circle you are in. That's not the city,
the city is much more diverse than that. There are crackheads and hos, bums
and pimps, bus drivers and lower class korean immigrants. Its not an idea
place for those people, it's just home.

A city can gain a reputation, and this reputation can cause a crust of a
certain type of person to form in the city, but beneath this layer, every city
is made up of normal people.

Sooner or later, the trend will change and the flavour of the crust will
change, but beneath it all, life and death of these normal people will
continue.

You are mistaking the icing for the cake.

~~~
hugh
_Imagine some black bum you drive by, imagine how he sees cambridge. For him
its not a place of ideas. There is no push towards reading._

I'm not sure why you felt the need to bring the hypothetical bum's race into
it, but I disagree. A bum on the street in Cambridge sits around resenting the
fact that all the successful people around him are better educated than he is.
A bum on the street in Hollywood, on the other hand, sits around resenting the
fact that all the successful people around him are better-looking than he is.

~~~
menloparkbum
The bums in Cambridge are almost always white.

~~~
epi0Bauqu
There is a disproportionate number of white bums, but there are certainly a
lot of black bums too. So I would not say they are almost _always white._

~~~
ardit33
my favorite is that black guy that hangs before Au Bon Pain that uses flatery
to get money: "Young lady", "Big guy", "Pretty lady", could you spare some
change?

SF bums are not that pleasant.

~~~
brlewis
The same is true of a lot of Boston beggars. I find people in the Boston area
generally well-spoken. Education is emphasized a lot, not just in Cambridge.

------
mhartl
I've realized now why I always liked living in Los Angeles so much (apart from
my family being nearby): 'Los Angeles' was really 'Pasadena', and 'Pasadena'
was 'Caltech'. Living in Pasadena near Caltech was like living in Cambridge,
only the weather was good and most of the books on people's bookshelves
required calculus to understand them fully. (I've also lived in Cambridge, and
while I loved all the high-IQ neighbors, there's also a lot of pseudo-
intellectual pretension there. Not all books need mathematics, of course, but
math is a convenient pin for pricking inflated egos.)

~~~
zach
A weird thing: the Borders in Pasadena is about the same size as any other yet
it unfailingly has the books I want to read. Followed by Westwood, Santa
Monica and Hollywood.

Interestingly, Moleskine (which is totally "stuff white people like") recently
created a Los Angeles City Notebook including a map of "selected" parts of LA.
Metropolitan LA is 4,850 square miles, so one wonders where they selected.
Answer: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/atwatervillage/2444508587/>

------
coglethorpe
I've noticed messages as well:

Gary, IN: Lock the doors. Do not stop.

Macon, GA: You know, Atlanta is just up the road, right?

Elko, NV: The only winners are the house and the mine owners.

Milwaukee, WI: Fourth place is just fine, given enough beer.

Clearly, I need to hang out in better cities.

~~~
muhfuhkuh
Okay, me too.

Columbia SC: Uh, the culture is pretty much centered around it's mid-tier
University of South Carolina, which is a party-hardy Frat/Sorority vibe. So, I
guess it says "YEEE-HAAAAW! More beer, Bo!"

Hartford, CT: Unless you can calculate the death of a 55 year old smoker with
no major medical history within a margin of error, the city says "There's NY
below and Boston above, take your pick, pay your toll, and have a nice day."

Raleigh-Durham, NC: Duke University, UNC, Wake Forrest, North Carolina State,
Shaw, and various other colleges all within around 20 interstate exits of each
other. I guess it would say "study hard, and find job at IBM, Sony-Ericsson,
or Cisco." Not too much entreprenurial spirit here, I guess because the tech
giants gobble them up with nice offers right out of college.

~~~
aston
Wow, SC people hang out here? Sweet.

Columbia, SC doesn't really send any strong messages. Only the young people in
the area have anything to do with USC, normally, so not even the frattiness
comes across that strong.

College football tailgating, however, is a state-wide sport.

~~~
SwellJoe
aston, are you from SC? I'm from Greenville (which sends the message, "How can
we be more like Atlanta?", or at least it did when I last lived there 14 years
ago). Small world.

The message in Charleston definitely has something about aristocracy and the
value of old money, while the message in the rest of the coastal towns
generally involves fishing. Except Myrtle Beach, where the message is, "Y'all
come on down for a visit, and leave your money when you head back up north."

~~~
earthboundkid
Went to Furman, agreed.

Visited Bob Jones as a kid -- "You know you're going to hell, right?"

~~~
SwellJoe
Weird. I lived three blocks from Furman. It was my playground, growing up. We
played video games in the student center using change fished out of the
fountain beside it, flirted embarrassingly with the college girls,
skateboarded and biked all over, and regularly got kicked out after the campus
closed for the day (for those unfamiliar with small Southern Baptist liberal
arts schools, or at least Furman, they close all of the gates except the main
gate at 10PM and only allow students in).

Speaking of Bob Jones, no one ever believes me when I explain that it has a
"date room", wherein couples sit together in a chaperoned room, with a Bible-
width space in between. Which explains why Bob Jones girls are such a terror
when they do manage to escape the watchful eyes of the school.

------
epi0Bauqu
All of the city messages in the essay should be qualified with _to the most
ambitious people within that city_ or even more narrowly _to this particular
community of ambitious people._ Put another way, within a given community of
the most ambitions people in a given city, what is their metric for success?

I went to MIT for undergrad and grad, and then lived around there for several
years thereafter. I do not think that Cambridge tells all its’ residents that
they _should be smarter._ But it does send that message the average person
within the MIT (and presumably Harvard, which I know less about) community.

My first company was in educational software and I interacted some with the
Cambridge public school system. Some schools were pretty connected to the
ambitious community, and others were almost completely separate. In other
words, there are pockets of people, perhaps a majority, that are not in the
ambitious community and do not perceive the ambitious community message. I
would bet that in these pockets, there are sub-pockets, each with their own
messages.

Now Cambridge is a weird place with an unusually concentrated group of the
same type of people, and I agree that I haven’t at least found any place else
like it. But it is just a pocket of Boston, albeit a bigger pocket than some
of the other ambitious communities in other cities. And as Paul pointed out,
Cambridge is not Boston. So he is really not talking about cities.

Again, he is talking about specific communities within cities. There are
probably even other ambitious communities in Boston (in its financial
district, for example), where the message is not _you should be smarter,_ but
something more along the lines of _you should be richer._ And I’m pretty sure
there is another, separate, local politics community, where the message is
more like the DC message described (on a smaller scale). (My wife worked in a
state agency, and we have friends who were in the legal community there. I
myself was the treasurer of a city council campaign.)

So, in sum, I agree there are messages within communities. But I wouldn’t
generalize to entire cities. The reason I think people get confused is because
particular types of these communities only exist in certain cities, and in
sometimes just one. The messages Paul describes are in the communities he is
more likely to happen upon given his network and interests, within those
cities. Yet there are certainly other communities within those cities with
other messages. These other communities, in the aggregate, probably account
for the vast majority of people in a given city.

~~~
paddy_m
I grew up in DC, now I live in NYC. DC has a couple of messages "You should be
a lawyer" is the one I felt the most, that seemed to be the thing to aspire
to, most politicians and lobbyists are lawyers.

As a programmer I heard "you should get a security clearance" many times. The
amount of people aspiring to government sloth in DC is astounding. DC is not a
place to be if you want to build things.

I guess in New York I feel "You should be an investment banker". It is still
amazing to me that lawyers aren't all that impressive in New York, they are
also rans compared to financial workers.

Yes the finance industry is huge in New York, but so is media. Media people
are mostly young and paid very little. I think I read that the average
starting salary for someone with a college degree in New York is $36,000.

------
ii
Great article. I think that those messages apply not only to cities, they
apply to whole countries in a certain periods of time. I live in Russia and I
can hear the message very clearly: "you have to win". And it works: soccer,
hockey, music -- we've won several competitions in a very short time frame.
Hope you'll hear about us on the web startup front in a near future too :)

I never thought before about the importance of place where you live and work.
After this article I see that St. Petersbourg is a far better place to start
something new than Moscow. Startups are "second class citizens" here just like
in New York. I thought about moving before, now I have made a decision. Thank
you, Paul.

~~~
osipov
Why not Novosibirsk? With the Siberian climate the message is clearly "you
should stay indoors and work"

[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/04/02/8403482/index.htm?postversion=2007032605)

------
rtf
My experience as a native resident of San Francisco(22 years, but the last few
mostly spent out of town for college/work) is that most of the people residing
there are _tourists_.

That is, people who come there(and many different people do, the turnover is
high) also tote along some baggage of what they think the city is about.
Vision meets and gradually becomes reality as the newcomers act out their
desires, to varying degrees of success. So there is a sort of flow at work.
Realization of all the various lifestyles present is a multi-decade process.
Plus it changes quickly and incrementally, so as to become nearly
unrecognizable. I'm still nowhere near a full comprehension of my hometown.

The broad strokes pg paints in this essay seem more reminiscent of college
lifestyle than the character of entire cities. A four-year college is able to
concentrate those kinds of ambitions precisely: everyone is at roughly the
same few stages of life and so can quickly find common ground.

But in a city, things quickly collide.

~~~
ardit33
SF was created during the madness of Gold Rush, and it changed over nite. Then
it got raised twice to the ground, and got rebuild again.

The Japanese got kicked out, and the Chinese and African Americans moved
in.... etc. etc. Than the 60s and the hippes came, then the 90s and the dot
commers came.

SF has always been a city in a huge flux, as a place of great opportunities,
and attracted many people with the "gold rush' mentality

Your grandparents propably were some of these people that came to SF for these
opporunities.

------
Alex3917
"Oxford and Cambridge (England) feel like Ithaca or Hanover: the message is
there, but not as strong."

There seems to be a lot of ambition in Ithaca, but the focus is on the
collective rather than the individual. The messages that Ithaca sends are
"make the community a better place, help the less fortunate, buy local food
from the farmers market and co-ops, support local artists and musicians,
attend community festivals and events, bond with your neighbors, and support
the local schools and public transportation. Also, distrust authority."

This is reflected by the fact that the two most popular bumper stickers are
Coexist (spelled out of religious symbols) and "Ithaca, NY: Ten square miles
surrounded by reality."[1] And despite the fact that if you drive ten miles in
any direction (except along the lake) you'll run into people living in trailer
parks, the town itself is actually a surprisingly nice place to live.

The town support individuality, but only to the extent that your individuality
helps bring out the individuality in others. The message seems to be that you
can start a startup and we'll support your efforts to become successful, but
not so successful that you drown out the voice of the rest of us.

[1] [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Coexist-
bumpersticke...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Coexist-
bumpersticker.jpg)

~~~
hugh
I don't think that sounds like "ambition" at all.

~~~
Alex3917
If a collective cannot be ambitious, then it follows that a corporation or a
web community cannot be ambitious. And yet that does not seem quite right. Or
are you saying rather that a town could be ambitious, but that Ithaca does not
seem to fit the mold?

------
jakewolf
Raised by an academic and musician/programmer in Palo Alto, I wanted to start
a salad dressing business when I was 13 before Whole Foods had already taken
over the country. I would have, but didn't realize I could by olive oil
wholesale and buying retail wasn't profitable. It wasn't until I moved to
Manhattan that I started my first business at 22. Now, I'm about to get going
with something online and am most likely going to move (temporarily) to Israel
. Smart, ambitious, talented people and a much lower cost of living than in
America. Sometimes being an outsider can be motivating.

We'll see how it goes. I'm psyched.

------
tdavis
_"...you get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things
you do."_

This has discouraged me for years here in my small part of Ohio. It became so
discouraging that when I learned I'd be moving to Boston for YC and,
hopefully, never live here again in my life I essentially cut all my ties
overnight. These were people I'd spent the last 7 years of my life with;
mostly friends from high school. I don't know what we had in common 5 years
ago that made us such great friends, but we certainly don't have it in common
anymore.

It was both a very difficult and very liberating experience. I'm 23 and feel
like I'm about to live for the first time. I hadn't realized until recently
how important it is to me to be around people who care about the things I do;
who are as motivated to gain knowledge and be successful, but it's...
_everything_.

------
afisk
Your characterization of New York is very much that of a visitor, as it should
be. "You should be richer" is not the defining characteristic of New York,
it's "you're a minority." For anyone who has lived here for a year or more,
the fact that everyone is a minority on some level is what makes New York
breathtaking.

The New York you're talking about is also a minority. From the outside, Wall
Street and Madison Avenue may seem to dominate. From the inside, they're
barely noticeable unless you're in that world. Wall Street and Madison Avenue
are swept up in the endless current of people just like the gay Puerto Rican
teens who hang out above Pier 40 on Friday nights in the summer.

The depth and breadth of "New York" is what makes it truly great. New York has
so many worlds swirling around you that you'll never fully understand -- it's
humbling and exhilarating to the core. New York's "ambition" is the endless
hope of all of those minorities from countless directions -- the ambition
you're talking about is much more one dimensional.

~~~
Jake
your post made me smile. i lived in the city for 14 years. there were the
uptown kids, boring upper east-side parties, divorcee moms of the upper west,
faux-hipster of avenue a, drug kings of Avenue d, pretentious bowery gays,
i-bankers who poked at plebeian lawyers, hedge funders who poked at i-bankers
and took home their madison ave. girfriends of west village, little chitaly,
2nd tier murray hill post grads who couldn't afford turtle bay, turtle bay
types who only used their apartments for sleep, pretentious chelsea boys vs.
the "matured" hell's kitchen gays, soho of old, new soho (new jersey), the
area of south midtown of low 30's and upper 20's that to this day still has no
identity, battery park city's isolation to the rest of the island, forgetting
there's a world past 11th avenue.

there really is no one new york when you live in manhattan. if i didn't have a
family who loves living out west right by the beach, i would be back in a
heartbeat.

------
wheels
I think Paul's right here, but there is one point that always irks me when
he's talking about location: It comes off as assuming that the singular goal
of your life is to start a successful startup and that having a successful
startup makes you a great person.

While we're throwing out city memes, here's what I'd peg my beloved Berlin:
Break the rules.

~~~
asdflkj
What rules do they break in Berlin that are not broken elsewhere?

~~~
wheels
That's the wrong question. This is about culture, not tallying. Berlin is
special because it's a chaotic city in a country of orderliness.

I started writing a list, but it doesn't do it any justice. Just like listing
10 big companies won't circumscribe the feel of Silicon Valley, a list of
goofiness won't peg Berlin. But hang out in Kreuzberg for a weekend and you'll
get it. :-)

Berlin is still living on the energy from the wall coming down almost 20 years
ago. The west side was long a quirky occupied island hundreds of kilometers
behind the iron curtain and the east was the first place where people rebelled
and started down the path that reunited the city.

(Note: I've visited 28 countries and lived in 8 cities, so this isn't just
cheering for the home team.)

~~~
asdflkj
Wouldn't breaking the rules, if it were truly that general, result in
something more substantial than goofiness? And if it's just goofiness, perhaps
a better way to put it would be "break the social conventions".

It might seem like I'm being contentious just for its own sake, but I'm not.
It's precisely the thing that most irks me about Western Europe: the attitude
of "don't break the rules". Europeans seem to like to break rules that are
obsolete or largely inconsequential (e.g. about drugs and sexuality). And
they're very proud of that. But the big and important rules, like those of
business and broad social order, are universally accepted to the point where
they are seen as morals.

Maybe it's different in Berlin?

~~~
wheels
It's a mix here. There's definitely a bohemian atmosphere (in many, not all
parts of the city), but reducing that to sex and drugs isn't really fair. It
extends to arts, street culture, work environments, etc. I think I see what
you're getting at though, so I'll give a few specific examples of rules that
are broken here:

\- "Living in a big cultural center is expensive." It's cheap here. I don't
know of any other western cultural center where that's true. 3.5 million
people and there's a housing surplus. This has a huge effect on the city.

\- "You need a lot of money." A side-effect of the above, there's a real de-
emphasis on having cash here.

\- "You should have a normal job." For good and bad, there's not much big
industry in Berlin. Most of my friends either work independently or in
relatively small companies. Most of those companies aren't startups in the
sense that we use the word here, but small businesses that do well enough.

\- "You need to grow up." You can still go out here when you're 30. Or 40. And
it's not weird. And it doesn't mean you're not professional. Similarly, there
doesn't seem to be the taboo against founding a startup over 30 (I'm 27 and
one of the younger guys at the meetups I've been going to.).

~~~
asdflkj
Interesting! How did the housing surplus come about?

~~~
wheels
A lot of people left West Berlin when the city was divided and a lot of people
left East Berlin right after reunification. The massive housing surplus that
resulted caused housing costs to sink and cheap housing made the city a mecca
for alternative culture. Cost of living probably doesn't even hit a quarter of
Paris or London.

Here's an article from 6 years ago that's somewhat dated, but still gives you
a feel for things good and bad:

[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_23/b3786132....](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_23/b3786132.htm)

~~~
DanielH
Berlin is really something to consider if you start in Europe... ;)

~~~
ericw
we are running a music-related startup out of berlin (soundcloud.com) and it's
really great in terms of costs & quality of life. If you're in Berlin, make
sure you have business elsewhere, because the city in itself is quite poor.
It's almost like outsourcing to east Europe, but you have a lot of credibility
in the west still...

------
mthg
I tend to agree with those who believe that your immediate community of
associates to have a much larger effect on your personal outlook than the
defining characteristic of the your city of residence as a whole (although
certainly each major city has one).

For example, I went to college at the University of Virginia, where the career
prospects of most graduates reside in DC. As a programmer destined for DC, the
message was loud and clear: "Be a defense contractor." For my friends who were
not in engineering, the message was equally clear to them: "Be a lawyer."

But personally I never really cared much for success as defined through local
conventions, mostly because I got bored too easily, so I spent half my college
years as a cartoonist. Around the drawing board, the message I got was : "Be
funny." Granted, our school is mostly known for successful lawyers and
politicians, but we do have Tina Fey as well.

When I did hang out with the CS kids, it was almost exclusively with the
computer graphics guys, and from them the message was: "Make photorealistic
real-time applications." (As opposed to "Be a defense contractor.")

After graduation I moved to New York as a software engineer at a very large
financial firm, and again I mostly managed to avoid the "Get rich" attitude
prevalent in NYC by working with a small group of engaged CS folks some of
whom were also start-up founders.

In none of the above situations was my local sub-group larger than a dozen
individuals tops. Majority ambition can rarely ever suffocate sub-communities.
The real danger is that a small community is vulnerable from disintegrating at
any time. For example, all the previously mentioned clusters eventually
dispersed, from graduation and corporate turnover and they are never
immediately replaceable. In a place like Cambridge or Palo Alto, I suspect
this would not be such a major risk.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: if your city's message as listed by pg is
incompatible with what you want in life, don't freak out.

------
tyn
"What happened to the Milanese Leonardo?" Just for the sake of argument, I can
think of some counterexamples: Archimede living in Syracuse (not exactly the
mathematics and engineering capital of the ancient world), Einstein in Bern,
Bobby Fischer in NY (and not Moscow). I'm sure you can find many many more.

~~~
pg
Syracuse was in fact probably the richest and most sophisticated city in the
West at the time.

~~~
tyn
What happened to the other Syracuse geniuses, then? Now it gets more
complicated. I think that the article's argument apply more to some fields
(e.g. painting, cinema) than others. IT is probably one of these other fields
(Guido van Rossum comes to mind here).

------
manvsmachine
"A friend who moved to Silicon Valley in the late 90s said the worst thing
about living there was the low quality of the eavesdropping."

I can totally relate to that, as an acquaintance of mine from Boston and I
echoed very similar sentiments about where I live (Atlanta). There are some
great universities and brilliant people here, but you really have to actively
seek them out. I'm still amazed how drastically the average quality of my
interactions with people dropped when I first moved off campus. It seems to be
almost a win or lose situation in regards to motivation: seeing other people
involved in their projects, even if they are not in the same field, helps me
to stay focused, but if I find myself surrounded by vapid conversation all day
long, it actually has a negative effect.

------
caderoux
They say the difference between an Oxford man and a Cambridge man is that when
an Oxford man walks into a room, he looks as though he owns the place, and
when a Cambridge man walks into a room, he looks as though he couldn't care
less who owns it.

I think that should tell you quite a bit about the nature of ambition (and
lack thereof) at both those Universities.

------
__
Paul, what specific activities do you recommend for listening to a city? You
mentioned general eavesdropping and walking around residential areas in the
evenings; any others?

------
idmkid
One thing that seems missing is the notion of cities within cities. Los
Angeles and Silicon Valley (which I'm familiar with) cannot be treated as
monoliths. Instead you have districts in which one subculture dominates
others.

In Orange County you may have areas that are dominated by unemployed
housewives with lots of money. But you may have areas around a University that
have a completely different flavor. Comparing Westwood (UCLA) to Boyle Heights
(Ghetto) is a pretty stark contrast.

But I understand your meaning - similar to what Richard Florida and others are
saying about self selecting societies.

At least people like me who live in the middle west can a) put themselves near
an academic setting and b) can feed as much off of digital connectedness as
possible to offset the effect.

~~~
jimbokun
Did it really have to be said that he was considering cities in the aggregate,
and specifically the things that distinguish them as opposed to the things
they have in common?

I'm picking on you, but several people have made similar points. I think we
all know that any given city has different communities within it with
different values, levels of affluence or lack thereof, etc. Did it really need
to be made explicit?

------
jimbokun
Anyone offer thoughts on Asian cities?

I lived in Japan for a year, and mostly agree with shiro's summary. I guess I
would only add that Japan's identity is far more tied up in Tokyo (and vice
versa) than any one U.S. city is indicative of the U.S. as a whole. Generally,
when people cite Japanese culture, it is Tokyo culture they are referring to
(and given the emphasis the Japanese themselves put on Tokyo, not
inaccurately).

What about cities in China and India (must be some natives or expats lurking
here, no)? Africa? South America? Middle East?

(Some cities from these regions have been mentioned, but very few compared to
U.S. and Europe.)

~~~
jamongkad
I can definitely vouch for China. I lived in Shanghai and Xiamen respectively.
Both cities with different attitudes in their way of life. Personally I love
the hustle and bustle of Shanghai, most of my customers are in Shanghai and we
all agree that it's the place where the most action is happening in Asia.
Although it is not without it's bumps.

First off I naively went there hoping to get a piece of the action by
introducing our web app to local companies. Result? Zilch...too much
misunderstanding led to deals that either took way too long to process or have
fizzled out.

What I discovered though and almost by accident, is that it's the foreign
companies who operate there, became our primary customers. Which was a relief
cuz I would hate to translate our web app to formal mandarin(actually people
on shanghai speak a different kind of mandarin note the distinction.)

Xiamen OTOH lacked the hustle and bustle of Shanghai. It seem more laid back
and the people and their customs reflect that attitude. The highlight of
Xiamen is the Gulangyu University in Gulangyu island and it's deep history of
producing some of China's most talend pianist and musicians.

------
asimjalis
So what does Seattle say? My first thought would be that it says you should
work for Microsoft. After you join it says, you should have joined 20 years
ago.

------
joeyhess
A lot about cities, but nothing about the ~10% that still don't live in them.
The general message of the parts of rural America I've lived in seems to be
"we're not like everyone else". (The "we" is important.)

From that, you get common worries about encroaching suburbs (the "everyone
else" pushing us out). The "we" varies, from small funky communal pockets, and
of course religious groups desperate to be their own thing, to the dying breed
(but still generally dominant in rural life) of farmers.

------
Prrometheus
New York is made of a dozen little subsections. I see no reason why a
concentrated startup community could not form there, much as artist and
theatre communities have thrived.

~~~
jakewolf
There is definitely a startup scene in NYC. Lot's of groups such as
<http://wiki.workatjelly.com/>. However, there are far fewer tech startups
here than in CA. Most of the people I know work on Wall Street, advertising,
real estate, law, non-profits/education or something closely related. Back in
Palo Alto, I could walk into my synagogue and point to different people who've
taken their companies public, in startups or worked for big tech firms. Most
NYer's don't even realize SF and LA are almost as far apart as a round trip to
Cambridge. Different worlds the two cities.

------
rplevy
Just a thought about Boston. I live in Boston and it definitely is as
described, though I have heard that it (especially Cambridge) bloomed
culturally more when overgentrification was prevented by rent control. To the
extent that there still are some good independent cafes and lots of good
bookstores, and interesting events, Boston/Cambridge is certainly the type of
place you could expect to strike up a conversation about some arcane technical
or cultural topic with people you don't already know. This happens on a fairly
regular basis. Another thing worth mentioning though is that the
Boston/Cambridge area is a lot smaller than people who have not lived here
would expect. It is socially small in that you run into people you know all
the time, and it doesn't have the anonymity that New York does for that reason
as well. Geographically it is also very small. As pg says, MIT and Harvard are
adjacent, this is true (literally a short 5-10 minute walk along the Charles
River), but consider also that my typical bike ride from Jamaica Plain to
Cambridge is only 15-20 minutes. And Jamaica Plain is a southern/western
suburb (actually officially part of the city proper), almost as far south as
you can go before hitting the shore (Dorchester is further south), while
Cambridge is directly North of the heart of Boston. Similarly my western-
leaning home of Jamaica Plain is 30 minute ride to the far eastern community
of Charlestown. The point of bringing this is up is to note that cultural
millieau of Cambridge is present in the whole area, even if strongest in
Cambridge. The same kinds of events that happen in Cambridge occur all around
the area, which is not surprising considering that everything is so close
geographically.

------
cicerone
San Francisco: Create something important, shoot for the moon! Once you're
done, wear it on your sleeve like the politically correct asshole that you
are. Oh yeah - learn a bit about wine, will you?

Portland, Oregon: Welcome to the Garden of Urban Eden. Don't tell anyone
though. Just lay low and work on that novel.

Seattle: What? You thought I was hip and happening? Go inside and code
something, ya bum. Buy a sea kayak for those "sun breaks" if you're feeling
feisty.

Florence, Italy: Walk in the footsteps of creative genius. Just don't forget
to keep on walking. Seriously, I'm just a dapper old man now, not worth more
than a summer abroad.

Bologna, Italy: (just translate Portland, Oregon into Italian)

Milan: Forget about sunflowers. Get industrial, Italian style. You might want
to ditch those sneakers though, capsici?

Rome: I am the the warm, blood-soaked bosom of Western history. You just might
get lost and waste your entire life here. Worse things could happen, though.

Montreal: Savor the moment, live life to the fullest and create something
beautiful, because Winter is coming. And it's nothing nice, yo.

Tokyo: Get to work and get moving, because we're WAY ahead of you. After work,
it's totally OK to indulge your pervy self though.

Los Angeles: YOU could be so great. THIS TOWN could be so great. Where is
everyone anyway? No worries, just do your own thing.

Miami: Forget about LA. I'm the real sexy deal. Unless you're looking for
work, then get lost.

New York: I'm the biggest poser in the World. Deal with it.

------
davidw
> you should be more powerful.

The subsequent "effect you have on the world" is a far better description of
the bay area than "power". I think that in terms of actual "power", as in
Washington DC power, the bay area is underrepresented for the amount of money
there.

------
brightonreader
Thanks for your letter to Cambridge (Boston). I grew up in Boston, raised by
parents who told me two things with more regularity than anything else 1) Go
outside 2)Read more. I've lived in San Francisco, New York, Burlington VT, and
Nashville and could not agree more than Boston is a city that people consumed
with ideas come to really appreciate - even as they shovel out their cars in
March.

------
rdi202
Interesting essay. I'm from New York, but I've lived in Sydney for the past 2
years. I think Sydney's natural beauty and physical remoteness lead it to be
oblivious. After living here, I've never felt more capable of tuning out
anything ugly. That worries me because I think we need to experience ugly
things. But it's not just about physical beauty and remoteness because I can
think of places similar in those respects that don't seem to express such
brazenly blissful ignorance. I think Sydney is about being proud of being able
to afford the luxury of obliviousness. Even if you bother keeping up with the
world, nobody else here really seems to care, so it leads that ambition to be
vestigial. Of course most Sydneysiders would bristle at such an assessment,
but that's the attitude I pick up from my own eavesdropping. I think Sydney is
also obsessed with youthfulness. Fundamentally, then, it's like living in an
American high school. Why did I move here again?

------
menloparkbum
Where is the art capital of the contemporary world? If Paris is where people
appreciate art, and New York is where people buy art, is there a single city
better than others where people go to make art?

~~~
pg
Of cities I know, I think Paris might be the place to go to make it. Assuming
what you want is to make good stuff rather than to create a brand, that is.

------
yef
Money and power are interchangeable, and that's what most ambitious people
want. Of course, there are other benefits, like the joy of seeing something
work, and the satisfaction of making a difference in the world. So most polite
people will play up those benefits over the money/power angle.

Fame, hipness, insider knowledge? All either means to an end or cultural by-
products. LA is run on power and money - studio execs are the most powerful,
and basically run the entertainment biz, but they generally stay out of the
limelight. DC runs on political power, plain and simple. Hipness is a by-
product of having a very large concentration of young, single people in one
place. You'll find brands of hip in every major city.

Ideas as Cambridge's main "industry" is also somewhat of a dubious
distinction. Ideas are cheap. Talented people (i.e., the execution of ideas)
is the bottleneck.

~~~
mhartl
_Money and power are interchangeable_

Nearly, but not quite. For example, Linus Torvalds isn't rich by New York or
Silicon Valley standards, but he's quite powerful nevertheless. And Barack
Obama isn't particularly rich either, but he's on the brink of being perhaps
the most powerful man in the world.

~~~
byrneseyeview
He and his wife did get much richer as he got more powerful, though.
([http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/09/hospital_offici...](http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/09/hospital_offici.html)).
""She's terrific," added Michael Riordan, who was president of the hospital in
March 2005, when Michelle Obama was promoted to vice president for external
affairs and had her annual salary increased from $121,910 to $316,962." Hot
damn! Did she get two and a half times as effective at "external affairs" over
that year?

~~~
jimbokun
'Did she get two and a half times as effective at "external affairs" over that
year?'

I imagine she did. I'm not exactly sure what "external affairs" entails, but
it sounds like the kind of position that would benefit greatly from being
politically well connected.

------
bambax
Being able to choose a place to live strikes me as so American; reading the
article I realized I've never considered the possibility of living anywhere
else than where I was born (Paris). In fact my mother was born less than half
a mile from where I was raised, and today I live less than two miles away from
there, 35 years later.

I feel a little bit like a tree: if I move I'll probably die; besides, what's
the point of traveling if you don't come back to your friends to tell them
about what you've seen?

The "virtual city", however, changed everything; I check Reddit everyday (or
more accurately, every minute! damn addiction), watch The Daily Show, read
Slate; the problem is I have a hard time finding people to talk about it.

------
LukeG
I really liked this. Most of my baseline thinking on ambition, social class
and the like comes from Veblen and some assorted anthropological reading. From
what I understand, it turns out that in every human society (that western
anthropologists have studied & documented), there is an overt desire for (and
so often competition over) social status. While wealth, power, ladies and fame
are some of the most common types of social currency, they aren’t universal –
in some cultures, you’re the man if you grow the biggest vegetables in town.

Each of the areas you pointed out each has its own status game rolling
already. In my limited experience, San Francisco generally appreciates for
“doing good”; my friends and I seem to treasure “creating value,” building
things, and being constructive, but we all love our buddy who runs a nonprofit
that works with inner city youth. He’s the man. My friends in NYC, on the
other hand, don’t even try to justify shaving basis points with talk of
serving the greater good by making markets more efficient.

One of the positive perspectives I draw from the status game is that if or
when it’s incentivized correctly, things can (could?) get noble in a hurry.
Lifeguards in San Diego and Hawaii get respect, as do firefighters and cops in
New York and professors in Cambridge. The social esteem that these jobs convey
helps to make up for the shitty hard currency they’re worth. Now we just have
to translate the social currency of nobility into beachfront property for
teachers.

------
joewilson
I would offer Santa Fe, NM. It is culturally alive. It is a state capital
replete with hacks, journalists, policy wonks, lawyers, and elected
representatives with their hands out. It is also a town that attracts people
of real accomplishment, in other words people who have tested their passions
against reality and won. Judgement is a consequence of life's lessons, and is
not intuitive. Santa Fe has it all: art, culture, political preeners, and
people of experience and wisdom. Joe Wilson

------
JFred
In some places the message is "Leave". Leave this grody little town. I think
it's been the message of Detroit.

Jerusalem, where I live, has a message, "Pray". The biggest industry in
Jerusalem is the Israeli government (analogous to DC). The second biggest is
tourism. The Arabs and the Jews actually quit fighting and cooperate in
business to sell trinkets to the tourists.

So the other messages of Jerusalem are "Survive", "Fight", "Sell", and
actually, "Leave". A lot of the Israelis are moving to Tel Aviv for
business/employment reasons. But apartments are hard to get in Jerusalem
because the religious rich keep on buying up the snazziest spots. There are a
lot of very expensive apartments that are used maybe half the year. So another
message is "Visit". And people do. If you're into real estate, the message is
"Build Luxury". The luxury apartments are crowding out the poor.

The only ambitious people I've met in Jerusalem are the newly arrived, and
some business folk. Actually, the Torah Scholars are very ambitious in a way
that is about academics but also about power. They want to master their
subject, but also want their religiosity to change history through a sort of
Divine Intervention. That's pretty ambitious.

The reason you saw TV's was because the kids were watching. Mom and Dad were
online working or studying. Were the offices of Via Web lined with dead-tree
books up to the ceiling?

And the books you saw in Cambridge might have been from decades past, but the
scholars in the residences might have been online. Even sociology is hard.

------
connellybarnes
For much of my life, I lived in my mind, kind of autistically. I spent a lot
of time figuring how to get away from people, because they wanted me to do
things, and I wanted to go back to the castle in my mind. Only recently I
figured out that people actually take materialism, life achievements, jobs,
dress code, peer esteem, education, and so forth seriously. I had mostly
figured that people were putting on a show, kind of having fun pretending to
be serious about their lives. Oh the horror! -- like a bad novel -- everyone
actually cares about clothes and money.

I know what you mean though about cities sending a message. I used to ignore
what groups of people think, for reasons of principle, because human nature
doesn't scale. But then I got the naivete cauterized out of me, and so now I
pay attention to these messages, even though I don't entirely like being tuned
into them. I'm not sure if I go along with the messages, maybe I'm neutral or
slightly against (for reasons of principle).

In any case, I think ambition is good, because the human condition can be
improved. (If it couldn't then ambition would be harmful, because it would be
a zero sum game.) It's too bad the word has a connotation of money, because it
would otherwise be a decent word, and I don't believe in money.

------
r_wolfcastle
Very nice article, and I thank you. A couple of brief quibbles:

1) There is a more pedestrian reason why birds of a feather flock to a
particular city, and that is fungible jobs. People in high tech, for example,
change jobs very often, and knowing that one can do so with impunity because
there are so many others like you and therefore so many companies is a major
draw all in itself, and thus the community quickly becomes entrenched and
self-perpetuating in some cases for that reason alone.

2) Aubergine in L'Auberge Carmel says "jacket preferred", by which they really
mean "jacket required".

<http://opentable.com/rest_profile.aspx?rid=3334>

That said, and in defense of your article, the yahoo sitting next to us there
a couple of weeks ago would probably have been lucky to be seated right next
to the kitchen or bathroom door in New York. Collar undone, searingly bright
yellow tie half-knotted, and he held an unlit cigar in his hand during the
entire meal as he regaled his date (90% sure from an escort service) about his
racing speed boats and such. It was some tragically failed attempt to revive
the ring-a-ding-ding days of Hef hip, and it was painful to watch.

Lest you get the wrong impression, I'd rather have to see that sort of thing
occasionally here in Silicon Valley _and_ chew my own arm off than live in NYC
or DC.

Lastly, a city with a _great_ vibe, IMO, is Portland Oregon. The vibe seems to
be: "This is a square hole for those of you who are not round like everyone
else, and are tired of beating yourself bloody trying to fit into a round
hole. Come here and be yourself and we'll hang together and appreciate each
other's ingenuity. First round is on me."

------
abhijeet
It is important to be staying in the right place and so is staying in a lot of
places. If you put up at a lot of places you know more about yourself, you
know what turns you On and what turns you Off. This might be a good thing if
you are still trying to identify what you value most. I would suggest you to
settle down as soon as you find the right place, that is the place where you
will find like minded people and the energy that will exploit your life to the
maximum.

Online world on the other hand can never be a substitute, it really doesnt
matter at all, simply because the crowd there is too much for you to be able
to identify yourself with anyone, and it is difficult to identify the true
identity of the people there. I have spent a lot of my time on an Algorith
community on Orkut and made a few friends there. A lot of the people seem to
be genuinely interested in Algorithms and a lot of the people pretent they
are, it is not surprising to see that these imposters vanish away when they
find a job with a Google or Microsoft..

So wish you luck.. Keep searching till you find the one :-)

------
ccwu
This is one of PG's more observant and better essays. I was just in Boulder,
CO and I tried to figure out if I could move back there from Silicon Valley.
Not sure.

One thing I think that PG missed is that some cities have a blend of ambitions
that lean on each other. NYC differs from LA or the Bay Area in that it is a
power center for many different fields (Finance, Arts, Literature, Media,
Political (UN based there)) while the Bay Area is technology, LA is
entertainment and Washington DC, political power. That mix leads to better
eavesdropping. London is about the only other place where I get the mixed
vibe. Cambridge is interesting in that MIT and Harvard shape different
spectrums of thought leading to an almost NYC kind of diversity Whereas
Stanford and Berkeley compete on the same spectrum of fields, but on different
levels of social class.

I wonder if PG forwarded this to Joel Spolsky who is about creating a
different kind of start up in a NYC mold instead of SV mold.

------
chignon
I enjoy your essays very much, especially the ones about "life" matters. I
spent only a week in London and it was enough to get that message. That city
was very inspiring but also its message's pressure was a bit threatening to
me. It wasn't a comfortable ambition to me, I think that it wasn't focused on
the pleasure of the work it takes to achieve your ambitions. I would've
enjoyed reding more about this subject affecting european cities, I was raised
and live in Spain. People not always put Spain and Ambition together,
excepting Madrid, the capital, the message is "carpe diem", but in relaxed and
quality-living (concerining the weather) way. I believe that Europe's
economical and political system influences in people's ambitions, I find
Americans and those moving there (from what I read, at least) more ambitious,
less frightened about things not turning as expecteted. In Europe we depend
too much on the State.

------
slakinduff
1) I have found it impossible to establish relationships with others
(seemingly like myself) online. It plain does not work. I'm not sure why... it
just won't go. It doesn't make any difference how much you have in common or
what your accomplishments are. Try and drum up a discussion or introduce
yourself cold to someone in SV or at MIT or anywhere else, on say, LinkedIn.
You're a nut, an intruder. I doubt this will ever work. 2) There is an chasm
separating intellectualism and ambition that is difficult to understand. When
I read Bill and Dave, I was taken back by the ambition of early Stanford
engineering faculty. But today? I know too many at universities with stunning
intelligence, but still have that profit-is-evil and corporations-are-bad crap
from the 70's. It's like some weird religion. Talk about ideas and that's
fine, but AS SOON AS YOU MENTION ACTION, it gets ugly and they shut down.
That's why most MIT grads still work for Harvard grads. It's too bad, but this
is why Cambridge will likely never become some kind of SV. 3) The power and
action in SV you describe, is cold and lifeless and without meaning. Maybe
exciting like a thrill park, but meaningless. That's why startup successes
leave the founders in a panic to hitch the next ride, fast. What you say about
the message in SV is true, but if your ambition was to take action and do a
startup because you wanted to do something with meaning, better go somewhere
else because in SV meaning has no meaning. No one cares about meaning. Ideas
are nothing more than pancakes - flip 'em until their brown on both sides. And
so in this regard, the message in SV may very well be EXACTLY like that in New
York, with the only difference being that value is attached to the means by
which the wealth is gained - independently. Have you thought about that???
That in SV all they care about is money like in New York, but gaining the
wealth by independent means is what matters. You could test this - offer to
help someone free of charge. See how much they despise feeling indebted to
someone else, however slight. It's just a theory.

------
danvoell
I couldn't agree more, I have spent significant time in Milwaukee, Madison,
Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Austin and the feel and driving factors in
each city is vastly different. It's a function of who lives in those cities,
what the support network looks like, and how good the competition is. While
living in Chicago I worked in futures while trying to get a band off the
ground. Compared to other bands and futures workers I/we were average. The
problem was that the competition for bands was so weak and the competition for
futures traders was so high that when I finally got spit out of both of these
I found I was above average as a a futures trader but below average as a
musician. Relatively speaking you are only as good or slightly better then the
competition. You have to pick the best competition to compare yourself to or
you will never grow.

------
ctownjak
It is interesting to read that the article and comments are all true, but
wonder how these truths affect behavior. Yes, the environment is conducive to
development. This truth describes the most significant music scenes of all
time, including Memphis, San Fransciso, London, Detroit, among others.

Also, reading the comments below about going outside in LA and flip flops in
Tampa Bay, these are spot-on assessments of the culture of many average Joes.
Knowing this, one wonders how do extraordinary things happen in average
places.

New question: How big is the environment we are analyzing? Paul decided to
analyze the city, but we all have many environments of many sizes.

Example: My Digital Design professor asked, "Is the world digital or analog?"
His answer, "It depends how close you are to it." An alarm clock is digital
from across the room, but get close, open it up, measure the voltage across
the timer, and you realize it is actually analog. The environments? The
circuit board, the whole clock, the room.

So the city is one measure of an environment. The corporation another. The
home yet another. Personally, I am an extremely creative individual who formed
an web corporation with two friends who are excellent programmers. We're
developing the business in an extremely progressive fashion, in some ways very
different from Silicon Valley even. What is our environment? Our day jobs are
with a big, old, rust belt corporation that does many things wrong all day
long. This is in Cleveland, a city which is literally dying. So where did we
get our drive? From being in the environment that continually tries to teach
us bad lessons. Thus, when the environmental analysis is over, we realize one
can fall in line with their environment, or they can learn from it, and go in
a different direction using the lessons at hand.

John

President of some garage group three-man web corp in MBA run Rust Belt
Cleveland (Feel stuck? Nope, you’ve got the best lessons available.)

------
lukeprog
Paul Graham is one of my favorite writers. He's engaging, surprising, simple,
and brief. And he writes on topics of interest to everyone. Does anyone else
know good essayists that share these same qualities?

I rather like John T. Reed as well: <http://johntreed.com/headline.html>

------
geebee
This is an interesting take on cities. What do you think New Orleans says? I
haven't been there post-Katrina, but it definitely has a very powerful vibe
(the "show us your tits for beads" stupidity is actually just a very small
section of the city, not at all characteristic of the rest of the place...)

"You should live more soulfully?"

~~~
caderoux
I would think there is no doubt that New Orleans says: You should be yourself.

~~~
geebee
I read an article about a tourist who asked "where are the oysters from" and
got the reply "from the bay."

The lesson being that if you want to enjoy oysters, you're going to have to
let go and accept that there's a bit or risk in any real pleasure.

To me, that's always been the message of new orleans. True pleasure requires
some risk, and you have to embrace it, rather than merely tolerate it.

------
MikeGale
Shame on you Paul. You discriminate against startups because of where they
setup!

Seriously. In an Internet age it's less important.

I know many people depend on others to give them ideas, encourage their
thinking and drive them in whatever direction. There are other kinds of people
in the world. You may not hear of them but they're there. Maslow's self
actualisers, the prophet in his desert cave... Often times their thoughts and
interests are so different from those around them that they are in an
intellectual wilderness with no option to escape. For them Cambridge or LaLa
land are pretty irrelevent, no place is going to help them.

Now in that case the net may ultimately have a real impact.

If they can get a filtered group devoid of trolls, newbies and all the things
that destroy and dilute real thinking they might be better off in a virtual
community.

Your message is meaningful for many but it ignores an important sub set.

------
patmoore
To the inverse question is also very interesting.- Specifically, what if a
city _does not_ send a message? To me that is the same as a company that can't
get its marketing message and corporate culture right. The city, like the
company, flounders and "fails". I used to live near Detroit. That city never
recovered from the 1968 race riots. It could never re-discover its message of
success.

If a city as a culture (not just a political entity) does not value something,
then it provides no guidance to the immigrant ("new hire"). The resources to
be successful are not visible nor readily available.

In SV, I would say the message is not "power" but action. Specifically, "Great
idea. Have you built it yet?" This is why Cambridge as an "idea" center will
not overtake SV. SV is about doing - and more importantly accepting failure as
a step toward success.

------
gcv
Living in New York, I completely concur that it sends a message about having
more money, and I suppose it significantly shapes my own thinking. I've
noticed it even more in other people.

Just two nitpicks about the essay. First, I think that, in the London of Oscar
Wilde, you would have seen "hipness" as being important. Plenty of hip dandies
of the time, Wilde included, did not descend from the aristocracy of the time.
Second, I'm not so sure about the required jackets for men metric. For one
thing, some of the nicest restaurants in New York wouldn't bat an eyelash
about a patron in jeans, for precisely the reasons you discuss. I would trust
what Zagat has to say on the matter. I think a better metric would be how many
men choose to wear a jacket and tie, and on that score, I suspect that New
York still loses out as a startup hub.

------
bazfoobar
> When you walk through Palo Alto in the evening, you see nothing but the blue
> glow of TVs.

Perhaps the blue glow of monitors instead?

> So far the complete list of messages I've picked up from cities is: wealth,
> style, hipness, physical attractiveness, fame, political power, economic
> power, intelligence, social class, and quality of life.

Interesting to see that "you should be more religious" is not on the list.
That's closer to the message of Berkeley and SF: be more progressive, more
virtuous, destroy those close minded right wingers.

> It's in fields like the arts or writing or technology that the larger
> environment matters. In these the best practitioners aren't conveniently
> collected in a few top university departments and research labs—partly
> because talent is harder to judge

Methinks that MIT and Stanford do a pretty good job of assembling the best
technologists.

------
alaudens
Fascinating idea. It will be interesting to see if the idea of online
communities does allow for the kind of synergy (for want of a better word)
that you describe in New York or Palo Alto.

I’ve been trying to learn to use online communities to replace the live
contact the we used to get from working for big corporations with large
campuses. I’ve been at it for the last 9 months or so and I’m not finding the
same kinds of feedback or support that I got from lunch with colleagues.

As a kid growing up in the 50’s we were told that if you built a better mouse
trap, the world would beat a path to your door. Your essay confirms my life
experience, that the world will only show up at your door if you live in the
right neighborhood!

------
ryan1331
This article is terrific in its sweeping generalizations. The only thing that
kept me engaged to the end was the writing. Nicely done. However, I think you
over simplified the issue. I lived in NYC, Jerusalem, Vancouver, Montreal, LA,
San Fran. Yes, each city has its unique vibe but that does not mean other
elements don't exist. You just have to find them. I live in Vancouver now. One
may say that it is similar to Berkley in that the fundamental message is to
live a better life. However, underneath that, there is art, greed, style,
hipness etc. So yes, a city may have a theme but it is only that. Dig a little
deeper and ye shall find what ye are seeking no matter the city.

------
kedarnath
An exceptional case, but he makes a good point: (from
[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2007/c...](http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2007/capecchi-
autobio.html) )

At a critical time, when I was contemplating leaving Harvard as a faculty
member and going to Utah, he, being familiar with my self-sufficiency,
counseled me that I could do good science anywhere. The move turned out to be
a good decision. In Utah I had the luxury to pursue long-term projects that
were not readily possible at Harvard, which, in too many cases had become a
bastion of short-term gratification.

------
romilly
I'd agree that Cambridge is the intellectual capital of the world, but I think
you may have the wrong Cambridge.

I'm biased, of course. I was lucky enough to be a student at the other
Cambridge. My old college (Trinity) boasts more Nobel Prize winners than the
whole of France.

Cambridge, England, like Cambridge Mass, is blessed with a climate bad enough
that no-one would go there for the weather.

The English Cambridge is a delightfully compact city, with the University at
its heart. You can go almost anywhere on foot or bicycle. It's also cool to
wander through a courtyard unchanged since Isaac Newton knew it.

What message does the city send? Perhaps that you are mortal, but that
learning is eternal.

------
ljrittle
Having been to The French Laundry in Napa Valley on a few occasions
(admittedly none in the last few years), I can attest that they did not
require jackets. They certainly did not in January 1998 when three friends and
I dined there without knowing anything about it other than having a
recommendation from someone at the St. Jean winery, a place that we had
stopped at earlier that same day. A kind woman associated with the winery made
reservations for our group and told us how to find the non-labeled house. I
probably wore blue jeans to one of the best meals of my life... -Loren

------
hollerith
South Florida (late 1970s): You should have as much fun as possible (and New
York City sucks: I'm so glad I do not live there anymore).

Atlanta: if you can't avoid being pathetic, uneducated, dumb or from the
boonies, you should at least try to hide that fact.

San Francisco's message is, like PG said, you should live better.

Marin County (just north of San Francisco): a lot like SF, a little like
Silicon Valley, but what is distinctive about Marin is that many of its
influential citizens give off the message that you should use spiritual
practices to learn never to become angry or hateful and always feel love and
compassion for everyone all the time.

------
me2i81
The thing you're missing about San Francisco is that in the early to mid '90s,
commercial real estate crashed hard enough that you could get plush offices
with bay views for less than a tilt-up in a Mountain View office park. That's
one reason that so many internet startups ended up there instead of the valley
back then. When things heated up in the late '90s, the combination of hipness
and by then very expensive office space made it even more desirable in those
"let's spend as much money as possible to show how serious we are" days of
internet bubble 1.0 silliness.

------
walterk
Berkeley: You should be more eccentric.

Atlanta, so far as I can tell, doesn't have much of a message at all.

Having visited Cambridge over spring break, I'm definitely enamored with the
intellectual climate there, and will be moving to a nearby city in a few days
(with the intention of moving to Cambridge proper when I can afford it).
Getting to live in Cambridge is important enough to me that I'm hesitant to
even consider applying to YC's winter round. San Francisco, to me, is
essentially a laid back, less dense, more confusing, poorer, sleepier,
cobbled-together, more hipster version of New York.

~~~
hollerith
I do not consider that a worthwhile summary of Berkeley. I do not see a lot of
eccentricity in Berkeley except among the homeless.

~~~
walterk
The Berkeley I know valued differences in personality and personal style a
great deal. Maybe a better word would be 'niche', but there is definitely a
bias towards playing up one's oddities and particularities.

------
bigdumbanimal
Boston? Intellectual? Forgot to mention the Neanderthal Mayor Quimbys at
neighborhood festivals shouting "get your portuguese sausage heah!" or "get
your itallin sausage heah!" or "get your irish sausage heah!" all while
grabbing their nuts. very classy. not to mention the racists in every
neighborhood. did i forget to mention the Boston and Mass attitude that
everyone hates: the stick up their ass looks on their faces? Or that everyone
wants to cut the tongue out of every bostonite to keep them from butchering
our native tongue.

------
pingpong
I live in London... The city tells me that old is gold... tells me to hold on
to my ethnic form as there is nothing like a common global community form. The
city hinges on ancient culture instead of values. It is too majestic to be
assimilative in my opinion. It feels prohibitive. New York is a different
place really. A sexy conurbation... a true melting pot in this world... it
tells me that communities do come together on new values and reinforces my
belief in human-kind.

------
sealedidentity
That was a very good writeup. Yes, cities do mould people. What I am excited
about in the Bay Area is the possbility of success and recognition. The thing
here is, if you are good, you will most probably and in all likelihood be
recognized for it and valued for it. Also the geeky combination of Asian
Americans and the tech sector makes life more interesting at work. I've never
returned home on any day without having solved something interesting or
without learning something new. That to me is the essence of Silicon Valley.

------
anaphoric
Cities are nice to visit, but in the long run they are a bit of a grind.

------
kami_harbinger
This is utterly wrong. If you were trolling, good job, Graham. If not, grow up
and realize that your backwater burg is not as awesome as you think.

MIT is a sanitarium for masturbating nerds who can't get real jobs, it is not
"intellectual".

SF is not about "power". It's about making cool toys that make money. HP set
the tone for Silicon Valley. You should try reading the HP Way before making
statements about what other people think.

LA, SF, and Seattle don't require jackets in restaurants because A) we're
mostly descended from cowboys; B) the weather doesn't suck ass.

------
charlieok
Very interesting! This reminds me of
<http://creativeclass.com/whos_your_city/> which I came across recently.

I live in Denver, and I've been increasingly aware that it doesn't feel like a
very ambitious place, at least in the ways that I care about.

I'm considering Boulder... could somebody with a lot of time spent there speak
to what messages Boulder sends? And how well it (really truly) lines up with
the ambitions of tech entrepreneurship, intelligence, and living well?

------
noyb
Hilarious.

I've always thought Cambridge's message was "You're not a student. Go away."

~~~
consigliere
Or on the other hand ... "once you've been a student, please stick around and
join a high tech firm".

One of the most distinctive things about Cambridge MA is the concentration of
large numbers of people stay in the area who are intellectuals but are not
working closely with the colleges -- instead they're at IT startups and
biotechs & pharmas of all sizes.

In a New York their numbers would be swamped - and there are loads of
intellectuals in Manhattan & Brooklyn, just less than financiers,
fashionistas, and hipsters -- but greater Boston is just not that big.

On the other hand, Cambridge, England is, despite being arguably a better
place to study (quieter, and more supportive institutionally) just too small
for this -- almost everyone moves away from the city once they are not
formally a member of the university, most commonly to London.

Of course I could be biased by seeing the job ads in Lisp on the Red Line :)

------
bambax
"In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth?
In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?" -- Mark Twain

It's funny how little has changed in more than a century...?

------
janicearmellini
Your observations on needing a "great city", for a lifestyle based on art,
writing, and technology were right on..That is exactly what I've been looking
for, is Paris that city?? Or Moscow or toronto??After I read your latest
book,Who's your city" I decided what I've been needing most is NETWORKING.
Without a network its extremely hard to find one. I am planning a visit to
Toronto would it be possible to meet? Or should I just head for Paris! Janice
Armellini

------
divyaraghavan
Awesome. Well, I live in India , always have. Born and live in Bangalore, a
startuper and love doing exactly that. In India, Mumbai means money, Bangalore
means power(as in the bay area), Delhi means political power, Kolkata is an
intellectual's haven so on and so forth.

I guess we dont have a say in where we are born, but most of us do end up
"belong"ing somewhere, like, i will feel completely at home at SF. You should
write about the other cities too.

Divya

------
BozoPook
Agreed. And if you stay long enough you may witness a message meltdown. Living
in Seattle since '82, I remember my first impression was that it reminded me
of Minneapolis, but with better geography. Flash forward 25 years and the
vacuity of chasing status/money is deafening. I often wonder what life here
would be like if Bill had stayed in Albuquerque. It wasn't until the late 90's
I had to admit finally that what I considered ambition, wasn't.

------
revorad
"Hipness is another thing you wouldn't have seen on the list 100 years ago. Or
wouldn't you?"

Being picky about the grammar here, but shouldn't it be 'Or would you?' ?

~~~
aspirant
Explain how the grammar is sound? And I mean that seriously because I want to
be well written.

It seems like it should be:

"Or would you?" - so that what follows 'or' is the converse of what was said.

Or

"Wouldn't you?" - without the 'or' to denote skepticism.

And while we're on it, nix the first 'a' in "wearing a jeans and a t-shirt..."

Please understand that this isn't said out of pedantry, but out of love for
this essay. We should all be taught to understand the implications of what a
place says to us, on us. It should be part of any formal education.

Quibbling over grammar in our casual posts is lame, but this essay deserves to
be in a book one day, printed and in wide circulation, so please understand my
intention.

------
twashing
Thank-you for discussing this topic as it's been a major endevour of my life
for the last 3 years (<http://frye.blogs.com/thebox/2008/05/on-cities-
and-a.html>). I wanted to get it out of the way so to speak, so I could focus
on life's more essential aspects such as living, loving and producing
interesting work.

------
aswanson
I could get sick of any homogeneous personality type, if that's all a city had
to offer. I've been bored by money-chasing materialists, superficials,
monodimensional "intellectuals",etc. Try it. Try to hang around 1 personality
type all day every day and see if it doesn't drive you nuts, no matter your
personal proclivities. Best to get a variety, it is indeed the spice...

~~~
delackner
Bingo. I grew up in Silicon Valley and most friends I retain from there are in
software, and frankly while hanging out I don't really want to spend my time
talking about software, windows, mac, startups, ANY OF THIS STUFF.

In Tokyo, I find in my circle of friends perhaps one or two programmers, but
also financial services folks, a painter or two, several DJs, advertising,
designers, there are so many and no one actually cares what your job is when
you are socializing, though perhaps a few of the poorest dis-invite themselves
from dinner out more often.

------
carlisia
Paul... I am so thankful to you for writing this. Thank you! I cannot pluck
myself away from this place and now you have clarified what I just recently
started suspecting. I moved to the US from Brazil 17 years ago due to family
challenges. I went straight to Framingham MA, like many other Brazilian
immigrants. On my second week here, a group of newly formed friends took me to
Boston. I felt in love. I swore I would move there in 2 years time. I was
living there in 6 months. Unlike many Brazilians, I was in awe with the new
culture, and couldn't get enough of it. I didn't want to immerse myself in the
Brazilian community. Soap operas, the national past time of a country up to
that time pretty completely closed up to foreign influence (read: low level of
choices) had always been boring to me. I wanted to learn English as fast as I
could so I could read the newspapers and get in the know of what was going on
in such an exciting place! After learning English, I went to college
(something of a dream, it was not a prospect in my life back when I lived in
Brazil), had a really hard time choosing one career (I wanted to do
everything) and found my love in building software.

In two years time I had pretty much shed the longing for the familiar things I
grew up with, so the struggle between that and the thirst to experience the
new subsided. After a while, I started thinking I need a new "fix": a move to
a new (cool) place could do me good. I could never find a place I could
justify moving to, but the need for the "fix" kept nagging at me. Until... I
worked onsite on and off in Mexico City for 6 months and, despite falling in
love with that and other places in Mexico, it was branded in me that no place
other than the US would ever feel like home to me.

I kept looking to other cities, however. I naturally like to continuously
reassess my choices anyway. It was very recently that I finally figured it all
out.

I grew up in complete starvation of intellectual stimulus. I needed it, and
didn't get it. Since landing in the Boston area, I have been completely
consumed with nurturing this deficiency. I feel like I am behind and must
catch up (to what, I haven't found out yet). Although I lived in Cambridge for
7 years up to a few years ago, I feel the same for the entire Boston area:
there is not a time when I step somewhere that I don't meet somebody mind
bogglingly interesting.

This is so good to my soul. There is no place with the level of intellect
found here. You are so right.

-=-Carlisia

------
bram
The main problem with your essay is, I think, confusing "academic (ambition)"
with intellectual. There are just not the same and do not necessarily go hand
in hand.

Does having an intellectual conversation in cafe in Harvard happens as easily
as it does in Paris. How are people of what's going on outside their
discipline, or their country? Those are measure I would use.

------
staticshock
_It's not so much that you do whatever a city expects of you, but that you get
discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do._

I hear that. Trying to find an ambitious hacker in the middle of Connecticut
to exchange ideas with is an awful experience. People here are so... content
with the way things are. Content, numb and detached.

~~~
cpr
Well, I sometimes live (summer, mostly) in mid-Connecticut (Westbrook) at our
old house there, and I've been called a hacker; not sure how ambitious...

------
icky
_> Maybe the Internet will change things further. Maybe one day the most
important community you belong to will be a virtual one, and it won't matter
where you live physically. But I wouldn't bet on it. The physical world is
very high bandwidth, and some of the ways cities send you messages are quite
subtle._

I detect an opportunity...

------
fredwilson
Paul, I think you are wrong about NYC. It's not about money first and
foremost. It's about commerce and the neverending chase of what's next whether
it be art, music, media, money, shopping, food, nightlife, etc, etc.

It's the greatest city in the world and the only city in the US that can
compete with the great cities of Asia and Europe.

------
tartley
I suspect that being a foreigner meant you didn't pick up on a lot of the
class-based ambition in London. The city is moribund with it. Every social
event reeks of it.

I'm English, but lived in the US for five years, and have returned to England
for five years now, in London for the first time.

Another beautiful essay though, thanks for that.

------
sum
Is this not what "culture" is all about ? In the case of Indian cities - Delhi
it is power, Mumbai it is showbiz, Bangalore it is hip, Calcutta it is art
that seems to be the great ambition. Whether we want it to or not, the culture
of the city seems to seep in through the walls and affect your being.

------
ambition
Seriously, mqt, do you have a script that just sits there and polls
paulgraham.com/articles.html for changes?

~~~
jrockway
paulgraham.com has an RSS feed. So it probably just shows up in his RSS
reader, and then he submits it.

~~~
ambition
And here I was wondering why there was no RSS feed on the essays page.

~~~
delackner
And indeed for a long time there was no feed, despite him getting probably
hundreds of requests for such.

Happy to hear there is one now!

------
dreish
(Regarding footnote 3) Someone I know who hates wearing suits made
reservations at the French Laundry a couple of years ago and reported that
when he pressed them to be specific about their dress code, they said, "Well,
we think you'll be more comfortable wearing a jacket."

------
shapr
I moved to Somerville, MA a few months ago. It's right next to Cambridge, MA
but the message I read is "Learn Brazilian Portuguese" and "Learn to play
Capoeira." I will say that the larger Boston area mumbles the message of
Cambridge, 'be smart' and 'have good ideas'.

------
barce
What city says, "You should be more philosophical"? What city says, "You
should be more romantic"?

~~~
pg
Of those I know: Cambridge, Paris.

------
Psyonic
Very interesting. I just recently moved to Cambridge from Salt Lake City, and
while I don't feel like I've spent enough time here yet to really get a feel
for it, I think I see what you are getting at. There is definitely something
different in the air here.

------
joeychips
This is a great article with much insight. As a cartoonist covering life in
the Chicago area for the past 20 or so years, here is what Chicago says; "You
really need to be successful here, but if not, someone just might help you."

------
meansnothing
> This is one of the advantages of not having the universities in your country
> controlled by the government

Does pg really believe universities in the US aren't controlled by the
government, or did he just mean their locations?

------
trominos
My favorite essay in a while.

------
basdebakker
According to their website, the Carnelian Room in San Francisco requires
jackets. See <http://carnelianroom.com/themaindiningroom.asp>

------
vellaem
Bradenton, FL: You should leave until you are old.

St. Pete, FL: Didn't B-town tell you?! Get out of FL until you retire.

Trier, Germany: You should read classical literature.

Takamatsu, Japan: You should be Japanese.

Toronto, Canada: You should be polite, and make more money.

------
blocksmash
Philadelphia- No matter what field you are in, or what you do you will never
get the same respect as you would if you had done the exact same thing
somewhere else.

------
daniel-cussen
_Unless you're sure what you want to do and where the leading center for it
is, your best best is probably to try living in several places when you're
young._

"your best best"?

------
scottinsf
It will be interesting to see if the increase in the price of gas will become
a factor in whether startups choose San Francisco over the Penninsula and
South Bay.

------
karambela
this is almost like calvino the more intellectual less poetic version. you
made me think , but what about those people who are attracted to more than one
city and decides to live in between them. what about nomads and those living
in nature.(i know a few and they are usually on the more intelligent side of
the spectrum) and what about those who are trapped in a city and cant get out
of it.

~~~
Ladril
Ottawa, Ontario - you should be a bureaucrat

Mexico City, Mexico - pretty much like New York

------
mhidalgo
Now how about this question ?

What's more noble to try to live somewhere else that encourages intellectual
ambition or to try to improve the condition of where you are?

~~~
delackner
The wheels of history grind slowly, and if you want to see your ambition
result in actual movement forward, it pays to be somewhere where the forces in
play are already in your favor, not pushing against you.

If you want to improve the place you are, great. If you want to create a new
system that improves the lot of many many places that suffer from the problems
that affect your area, moving to a place that has great innovative energy and
people with connections to try new ideas is probably a good first step.

------
puneetht
Portland OR: Do what you can to make the world a better place. The Dalai Lama
has more street cred here than Larry or Sergey

------
mankul
Few people seem to be aware that cities, too have an aura of their own.This
aura is the cumulative aura of its inhabitants.

------
randomhack
Lately PG essays have become more literary/poetic than before. I do not
somehow identify with these later essays anymore.

------
tyn
I think that a web browser offers more chances for eavesdropping than living
in Cambridge (or any other city) does.

------
J-L
"As of this writing, Cambridge seems to be the intellectual capital of the
world."

That can be said for at least two Cambridges.

------
atreides
Madrid (Spain): work is for other people, not you.

Alicante (Spain): only the "S": sex, sun and sand cares!

Bilbao (Spain): not spaniards allowed

------
caveman82
As a recent NYC "settler" I found this essay insightful in a very empathetic
and visceral way. Thanks pg.

------
jojojo
Cambridge MA (and even Cambridge+Boston) is a a small provincial town compared
to New York City.

------
spiridon
Boston is too cold. That's the strongest message the city sends, at least
during the winter.

------
kirubakaran
I think Seattle says: "whatever"

------
thea
the "voice " of Rome is saying : "you have to survive: I'm here since
millenium, you will not". and you start learning how to live as best as you
can, knowing that the perfection is not of this world...

------
rms
Any link for more information on "au fait" as a component of social class?

------
zby
This resonates very well with the 'mimetic desire' theory by Rene Girard.

------
sayhello
Toronto, Canada: Let's try to be New York City (but try to be polite)

------
Mustnotbeblank
Bellingham, WA: Doing things well/skillfully/right isn't important.

------
listic
Is it just me wor whom the word "ambition" rings the alarm bell?

------
bdr
Oh, but the food tastes better when you're wearing a suit.

------
willhf
Thanks for the Hanover shoutout! Life is great here!

------
amirhossein
I enjoyed this piece of intellectual writing

------
pawling
why no mention of simsbury connecticut?

gerard pawling simsbury ct 06070

------
ideas101
Cities also tell you about the lifestyle (and speed) - new york is all about
speed, people dont have time. while i noticed that atlanta is laid back. also
each city might have multiple message depending which pocket you are - for
example if you are on a broadway in new york then you will definitely have
different feeling, if you are in hollywood then along with fame you will feel
hypocrisy (may be) and creativity. big cities always have multiple message
with different kind of ambitions.

I have also noticed that one kind of person will normally go for the city that
suit his/her personality (due to experience and the way they have been brought
up), for example a person brought-up in new-york will most possibly won't like
atlanta and vice-versa. the reason being NY guy is used to speed, he just cant
take anything slower, if the train is scheduled at 7.13am then he has to be on
platform on time, while a guy in atlanta will get anxiety if he goes to NY and
have to rush his life with everyone else.

City with laid back attitude also tells you that people over there dont care
for money but that doesn't mean people dont make enough money (in fact they
enjoy money at the fullest), on the other side people from the city of speedy
lifestyle always feel like they dont have enough money even though they make
good money, this is partly due to the cost of living and the culture where
everyone wants to make more money.

Also people from laid back city are not in-secured the way people are from
busy places like NY, London, Bombay, Tokyo etc. People from laid back city
dont worry about what will happen tomorrow, but people from city like NY and
Bombay are constantly worrying about tomorrow, it drives them crazy if they
are not planning their life/career in advance.

------
lst
(Not directly related, only some annotations:)

New ideas easily win over any sort of ambition:

But cities are too distracting for really new ideas:

In order for them to happen, you need the quiet of some sort of island (in any
sense).

(BTW, where are you coming from, exactly? The isle of GB, and the isle of
Lisp, right?)

------
mthreat
While I was reading this article, I thought it would be interesting to write
the same article, but replace cities with companies. For example, if you work
at Google, they value certain things there. If you work at Facebook, they
value other certain things (with some overlap, I'm sure). Just food for
thought.

