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Comment by ummonk | Hacker News Reader

I’m visiting Manhattan and coming to realize that the global citizens here are disconnected from the rest of America to an extent that even people in the SF Bay Area aren’t.

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I lived in NYC for 20 years. You are completely correct.

For a large segment of the population, if it's not in New York, it doesn't matter.

The only other non-industry-specific cities that get any notice are London, then LA — sometimes.

Can you provide more info on what you mean?

So both are diverse and have large foreign populations. But SV’s diversity largely comes from immigrants in search of the American Dream, most of whom tend to have affinity with the rest of America as well.

Manhattan in contrast has a lot of global citizens who would have more affinity with other cosmopolitan cities like London and Paris than with the rest of America.

This is a huge generalization and a guess on what it means. If you are in tech, looking to live in the US from abroad, some really only consider moving to NYC or maybe SF, LA or DC. Then once in the US, you don't really ever get a feel for living anywhere else in America. Whereas US born citizens living in NY or SF probably grew up somewhere else, so they have more of a connection with the rest of America.

> If you are looking to live in the US from abroad, you really only consider moving to NYC or SF, maybe LA or DC.

Interestingly enough, Houston Texas now ranks as the US city with the most international diversity. This is leading to all sorts of interesting things, like the development of new 'creole' cuisines (see the recent and rapid development 'Viet-Cajun' food).

This is admittedly off topic, but speaking of 'creole' cuisines, the inland border of California & Mexico, in the Imperial Valley, has a unique blend of Chinese-Mexican food. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/04/16/399637724/th...

A new trend in the Bay Area is "Chindian" restaurants, featuring a blend of Chinese and Indian cuisine (and sometimes Nepali or Burmese as well).

> If you are looking to live in the US from abroad, you really only consider moving to NYC or SF, maybe LA or DC.

Yes, and if you are looking to live in the US from abroad, good luck getting a work permit nowadays.

I'm not sure if you mean that in a positive or negative way. As someone who lives in Manhattan, I would love to know.

Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about it. Probably trending negative. On the one hand it really feels great to experience a global capital where people from around the world have come together. On the other hand, this explains how the print media (centered in NYC) seems to have a lot of articles talking about American issues where journalists seem to be from another world. E.g. the belief that undocumented workers do jobs no one else would be willing to do.

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