NYC vs. Mexico City; A Qualitative Analysis

Mexico and New York are distinct in many aspects. However, they are both among the largest cities in the world bringing along commonalities of metropolitan life, holding status and stratus within their fabrics. Each city is a mecca, the black hole of each respective country, sucking people in from around. I'm going to detail the grain of each city, from my perspective. Now, I lived in Manhattan for six years and have lived in the Distrito Federal (DF, pronounced day-efay, AKA Mexico City) for only four months.

New York, the world capitol full of sophistication, whom turns her back on ignorance may be familiar with London or Paris, but knows little of it's bigger sister here in America. I remember deciding upon potential cities in which to live and work while in New York. A brown haired beauty, a yoga practicer and former world model commented on Mexico City, "No, don't go there, it s super sketchy, you don't want to get kidnapped." The danger added to my appeal and here I reside.

The mystery and danger imposed upon Mexico may have a veritable reputation. For example, there are different types of taxis to take here, the libres with a reputation of kidnappings with forced ATM robbery. Friends of friends say they know someone who has been robbed in these green VW bug taxis. I take these often. A colleague warned of her friend, robbed by gunpoint while driving, but sitting in traffic. This is said to be commonplace. The advice is to keep the windows closed. Another collegue and his wife walked to school the same route that I take. They were robbed, rumor is by gunpoint, but they didn't have money and ran away from him. They live to tell about it. By contrast, a friend was jumped in the subway in New York, they broke his jaw and he was stitched up in the hospital. I too was jumped, at a bar on the LES, and healed after 12 stitches to the face. Violence happens in big cities.

The vibe of these monster cities is very different. NYC has imposing buildings impressively stretching into the sky. Her skyline is jagged and enormous, the people hundreds of stories below scurry cramped on the sidewalks. NYC is constantly buzzing, high on coffee and cocaine, speed. As the sun sets the lights of the skyline draw you in. You yearn to be a part of the rapacious thump of the night where all your miscreant thoughts are possible.

Mexico City sprawls, encapsulated by the widespread mountains like an atoll. The flat drained lake, the grey city formerly blue, pops sienna coral along the perimeter. The mountains select visibility based on the urge to overcome the everpresent car exhaust. It fights to maintain  a seeded naturalness in which the aloe plants breath through concrete, the earthquaken sidewalks. When the moon shines, crickets present themselves in the lull of cholesterol traffic.

NYC is a chameleon changing with the seasons. Humidity stifles the frenetic energy, when buidings in Tribeca and Spanish Harlem sweat with the thickness of blood, like the bodies on vacation in Sheep's Meadow and sunbathing on the Christopher Street Pier. Winter wind tunnels make you swear that you ve got to get the hell out and never come back. Apartments freeze, fingertips freeze, cheeks freeze, and a Noreaster thaws the truculent cold with blankets of snow, allowing the moan of the city to silence. People play and cars go away. When the sun shines, the snow begins to melt, thawing is sole trickery because it will freeze, and then it tricks you again, when you step off a curb into a dirty ice puddle, what you thought was ice.

The steadfast climate in Mexico City is less extreme. In August, it is a chilly summer like San Franciso, with sun rather than fog, sweatshirts at night. The next few months during rainy season, water deluges from the sky for hours, forcing you to detour under doorways while stranded without an umbrella on a walk for groceries. This fall, freak ice storms hit the city, tearing down leaves and clogging sewer systems to flood city streets a foot above doorways. October concluded rainy season and the most splendid sunny days now grace the city. Mornings are cold, producing visible breath above scarves, but the sun warms the valley, and you feel why the palm trees survive.

New York and Mexico City delivers that which affects the people residing within. They are each a cavern, dually protecting and endangering his and her citizens, however different.