[hoodq19]

It's easy to confuse the negative effects of scale with cultural similarities. I've lived in both cities and you'd have to step outside the US to find two cities less like each other.

Its easy to understand why New York magazine would publish high-brow link-bait: the decreasing relevance of banking-- NY's primary economic engine.

The funny thing is that the importance of banking is cyclical. Banker misbehave, markets punish them, they pretend to cower, they quietly recover... and then they misbehave again.

These kinds of comparisons will diminish once it's misbehaving time again.

[cyclecount]

The tech:SF::banking:NYC comparison is false for a number of reasons. Chiefly, no single industry in New York overwhelms the city the way tech overwhelms San Francisco. Finance, fashion, media, and many other industries are very big in NY. But NY is still bigger, bigger than people from San Francisco can fathom.

San Francisco is already overwhelmed with tech culture, and this sector continues to grow. Everywhere you turn, it feels like you meet people who work for startups or large software firms. There is no comparable industry in NY that is so pervasive. This lack of economic diversification breeds the other diversity deficits this article mentions.

[Bahamut]

Well said - NYC is big in many different facets. It has a large tech presence, but when considering all the other large presence of industries, it's just another sector.

To give an idea, companies like IBM and Pepsico (Pepsi, Frito Lays, etc.), and Kraft have a large presence just north of the city and/or in it. NYC is one of the largest cities for fashion. It is home to the finance capital of the world. It has one of the largest music scenes in the world. It has a huge advertising agency presence.

There is a lot more than just the aspects I mentioned even. That is how massive of scale NYC is - San Francisco's legacy is primarily tech.

[un_holy_guy]

22% of total revenue and 31% of tax base in NYC comes from the financial services industry. People don't realize what a one trick town it is