I’ve spent over half of my life in NYC, and I’ve been in London for just over a year. Enough to know my way around despite being nowhere near to calling myself a Londoner (no one cares about that here?). That doesn’t give me the right to play arbiter of this superiority contest (because how are you actually, objectively supposed to choose?), but if that’s not stopped other people from trying to sway your judgment, then it sure as hell won’t stop me.
- TFL is great if you’re a tourist but the MTA is better if you’re a resident. Cheap weekend flights to [European city name(s) here] are better than both combined.
- Londoners are from London, not the UK. New Yorkers are from New York, not the US.
- London’s parks are better (nothing compares to Hampstead Heath) and it’s is so much more than Central.
- New Yorkers are fast, adhere to pedestrian-etiquette religiously, and are assholes about it while Londoners are slow, have no pedestrian-etiquette, and are also assholes about it (but did I mention slow?).
- the pressure of simply existing is only a myth most Londoners have heard their New York friends complain about.
- New York knows what actual coffee is (fight me, I’m dying on this hill), and you’re missing out if you only stay in Manhattan.
- Subway Rat vs London Pigeon: the real fight we’re all placing bets on.
- there are more cool people in New York, but the cool people in London are really cool.
- y — no, okay, I run into more people in London than NYC. That’s either great or absolutely horrendous, depending on your mood.
- pub and bar culture is thriving (and was probably invented) in London; most places in NYC close at 4am but the real MVP is somehow bodega cat.
- both cities lend themselves to transplants and (speaking from personal experience) it’s not hard to make friends in either.
- it’s not really post code wars in New York, everyone collectively trash talks the Isle of Staten instead.
Regardless of which one you wind up in, please venture out of the City and/or Central. If not for yourself, then for all the people who’ve lived in both and know why there’s so much more to both.
