[nubbins]

Whenever I visit, SF still feels more human scale, relaxed, less anonymous, and more friendly to me than the shrine to global commerce that is most of Manhattan. But I trust people who live there who say its getting worse and its a lot smaller so I guess its more at risk of being colonized by a tech monoculture.

[ericd]

Interesting, I’d say Manhattan is much more human scale - it’s so much more walkable than most of SF. Unless you just mean the scale of the buildings?

[nubbins]

Hmm I guess the distances are similar but I'm thinking the corridors of midtown and downtown NYC where a pedestrian or cyclist is trapped between giant skyscrapers and 2-3 lanes of fast moving traffic (or worse a Robert Moses highway project cutting through the neighborhood) compared to SF's low neighborhoods and slower more restricted traffic patterns. Certainly depends on the neighborhood in either case and NYC has the subway almost everywhere which add to walkability of course.