What are the 'play music' cities in the world? There was some commentary about Atlanta in the discussion.
Cities and Ambition (2008)
31–40 of 59 posts
Re: Cities and Ambition (2008)
#32I find it odd that PG never uses the term "status" in this post - that's what he's talking about, what gets you social status in each place.
However I love this post, and wrote up my own little analysis of a few cities I'm familiar with: http://colinschimmelfing.com/blog/the-different-social-yards...
Re: Cities and Ambition (2008)
#33I find it odd that PG never uses the term "status" in this post - that's what he's talking about, what gets you social status in each place. However I love this post, and wrote up my own little analysis of a few cities I'm familiar with: http://colinschimmelfing.com/blog/the-different-social-yards...
I like your list, very funny!
I recently moved to Washington (eastern side) and out here it is more about what you can do yourself...do you own a excavator? did you build your own house? do you homestead? how much of your food do you produce yourself? can you rebuild your truck/tractor? etc.
Re: Cities and Ambition (2008)
#34What an interesting essay. I've lived in Atlanta for 12 years and I can't really figure out a message it's trying to send. One of the most up and coming industries here is film, and I know people in that industry and have spent time marinating in it, but it's not the siren call that riches is in NYC. Atlanta seems to still be finding its identity. All the industries are nascent, it always seems just on the cusp of a…
I had a professor some years ago who summed up Atlanta perfectly for me - "[...] it's the biggest small town in America". Having spent the past 15 years in the region I think he hit the nail on the head. I believe the biggest message Atlanta is sending out is one of music - musical arts are alive and kicking in Atlanta in ways that are very different to the other big music cities. I'm really hopeful that the general…
> I had a professor some years ago who summed up Atlanta perfectly for me - "[...] it's the biggest small town in America".
My friends and I regularly make similar comments about Dallas. I very rarely meet someone new without finding out that they are somehow connected to somebody I know.
Sayings like "Dallas is the world's biggest small town" and "I know I shouldn't be surprised, but how do the hell do those two know each other?" are common utterances among people I know. Also, for people I have a ton of oddball connections with, "Dallas is the world's biggest small town, and it's all [name]'s fault".
Re: Cities and Ambition (2008)
#35What an interesting essay. I've lived in Atlanta for 12 years and I can't really figure out a message it's trying to send. One of the most up and coming industries here is film, and I know people in that industry and have spent time marinating in it, but it's not the siren call that riches is in NYC. Atlanta seems to still be finding its identity. All the industries are nascent, it always seems just on the cusp of a…
> Atlanta seems to still be finding its identity. All the industries are nascent, it always seems just on the cusp of a big transformation. I have a theory about cities, that property values are largely constrained by geography as the first and practically only factor, and Atlanta has no geographical limitations that jack up prices. As a result, property has always been comparatively cheap.
I've observed similar things about Dallas.
Property values are going up here a little, but Dallas is still a really cheap place to live compared to any major coastal city or even hilly places like Austin, and the recent growth in property values is largely because a surprisingly large number of companies have all decided to relocate here in a very short span of time, and the housing industry hasn't caught up yet. I expect this trend won't last: eventually there will be enough new housing built in exurbs like Frisco and Prosper (and small towns like Celina being turned into exurbs) that it'll counterbalance the influx of new residents.
Re: Cities and Ambition (2008)
#36I mostly agree, though the whole Cambridge bit was a bit overdone IMHO. NYC seems to be slowly changing though, finance and money seem to be losing prestige a bit in favor of tech. Ten years ago there was "a" NY Tech Meetup. Now there are many dozens if not hundreds, it certainly feels you could attend one every day. I feel I walk around and see a lot more people these days whom I say to myself "they are definitely i…
I think you have a point here with Chicago. It may because no single industry dominates the economy like in Silicon Valley (tech), NYC (finance), LA (entertainment) or Cambridge (education). To me, the caricatures described in the post are largely extensions of these industries and those who are drawn to them.
Re: Cities and Ambition (2008)
#37This is really what I feel to some degree. The place you live at matters a lot. But even with 32 I haven't found mine yet. I feel I'm much closer (not in kilometers but in closeness to how I want to be as a person) but still some way to go. And this is really tiring, because moving to another town, making new friends, learning the local work network, learning the cultural nuances that nobody seems to notice until you fail applying one, getting used to a new apartment where the toilet seat is slightly higher and the shower water is "just right" with another setting you don't know yet. It takes a lot from one's life and happiness, and I slowly start to wonder at which point I might reach "good enough" and just stick to it.
Re: Cities and Ambition (2008)
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Clearly the message that Atlanta sends is "you should sit in traffic". (I'm joking, but I feel like this might be the kernel of something - most notably Atlanta's long-standing problems with segregation and resistance to public transit.)
I think it's "You should get brunch."
That's a southern thing in general. Brunch is probably the most common way I hang out/see friends over any other time.
Re: Cities and Ambition (2008)
#39You might think that if you had enough strength of mind to do great things, you'd be able to transcend your environment. Where you live should make at most a couple percent difference. This is exactly what I thought out of college. "I'm a product engineer! I can work from anywhere. I'm going to move back to my hometown and turn the rust belt economy around with a billion dollar startup!" As it turns out, I didn't hav…
This also applies to the oft-cited Good Will Hunting line about getting a great education for the price of some overdue books at the library. Yep, definitely, sure, you're right: you could definitely learn everything you would in college on your own. But you won't.
There are autodidacts who can go a long way with a big library (or nowadays: sci-hub, b-ok, MOOCs) and their own self-directed study. But if you haven't started on that path before finishing high school, it seems extremely risky to assume that you can start doing it instead of attending a university. Further, if you're already self-motivated and learning on your own, you're probably going to have a lot of (intellectual) fun attending one of the more rigorous institutions, learn faster with access to proper labs for experimental sciences, and fill in gaps that you might have tended to neglect with pure self-study. The credential will also be a big help later whether you want to go on deeper into research or find an "ordinary" full time job afterward. (College degrees are still economically worth it for those who complete the degree. If you can learn degree-material on your own you aren't going to be one of those sad cases who takes on student loan debt without graduating.)
I hated school before I reached the university level. I maintained good grades but I was usually bored and learned most interesting things on my own. A university was the first place I found a majority of fellow students who were straining forward to learn due to interest in what they were learning. It makes the experience far different from being with people who are just being goaded forward by a teacher or evaluating everything in light of "will this be on the test?"
Re: Cities and Ambition (2008)
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a 16 year New Yorker, I'm sitting in the Fulton Market right now, considering a move to Chicago and wondering exactly this. Is "a less intense NYC" a bad thing?
Oh no I didn't mean to imply that in a negative way at all. Its like NY, but way cheaper. My friend bought a nice 2BR condo in a building with a doorman and a pool and balcony on the 30th something floor for 300k. A different friend of mine is spending every other week there for work (we both moved to the same company HQ'ed there), considered buying a crashpad 800 sqft 1BR in "the loop" aka right downtown for a bit o…
Lol. “Omg only in NYC” is the trap that has kept me there this long.
I suppose my network is pretty strong at this point, so finding work as a freelance dev has been quite nice as a result. Though my network led me to Chicago, so i shouldn’t think my ability to find work isn’t constrained to nyc only.