New York City

:This is an article about New York City; see also NYC, New York, New York (disambiguation) and New York.

Culture of New Yorkers

New York City, sometimes called "The City That Never Sleeps," is famously fast-paced and active, and the American idiom "in a New York minute" means "immediately." The stereotypical "hard-boiled New Yorker" has a reputation as self-centered, rude, and impatient, and takes pride in the crowds, noise, and hardships of city life and often writes-off other cities as "not real cities". New York City residents are called "New Yorkers," although this term may also refer to suburbanites, and there is some use of borough-specific identifications, such as Manhattanites, Bronxites, Brooklynites, Queensites and Staten Islanders. Residents of the metropolitan area generally refer to New York City (or sometimes just Manhattan) as "The City," or "New York," and the acronym "NYC", as opposed to just "NY", helps to avoid confusing references to the State of New York. Other nicknames attributed to New York City include "the Big Apple", "Gotham", "the Naked City", "the Capital of the World", and the slogan introduced in 2005 by Mayor Bloomberg in an effort to win a bid for the 2012 Olympic Games, "the World's Second Home."

Related Topics:
Idiom - Stereotypical - Suburb - Bronx - Brooklyn - State of New York - The Big Apple - Gotham

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Immigration and international flavor

New York absorbs a greater diversity of immigrant groups than any other American city, and it absorbs a larger number of immigrants every day than all other U.S. cities except Los Angeles, giving New York an international flavor, and making it the archetype of the American ideal of a melting pot – a nation of immigrants. The city government employs translators in 180 languages.

Related Topics:
Los Angeles - Melting pot

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The five boroughs are home to many distinct ethnic enclaves of Irish, Italians, Greeks, Chinese, Koreans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Jamaicans, African-Americans, Iranians, Arabs, Jews, South Asians and many others, and there are also many multi-ethnic neighborhoods where people of different backgrounds coexist comfortably. Regardless of ethnic origin, all groups share a common identity as New Yorkers.

Related Topics:
Ethnic enclave - Irish - Italians - Greeks - Chinese - Korea - Puerto Ricans - Dominicans - Jamaicans - African-Americans - Iranians - Arabs - Jews - South Asia

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Some celebrated ethnic/racial neighborhoods include Harlem, Little Italy, Flushing, Jackson Heights, Chinatown, Washington Heights, Briarwood, and the Lower East Side.

Related Topics:
Harlem - Little Italy - Flushing - Jackson Heights - Chinatown - Washington Heights - Briarwood - Lower East Side

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The Lower East Side and The East Village are where the term "The Melting Pot" came to be, referring to the droves of people from diverse European nations squeezing into this small, 100 block or so area of tenements, learning to live together for the first time.

Related Topics:
Lower East Side - East Village

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Commuter culture

Because of traffic congestion and the well-designed New York Subway, six in ten residents, including many middle class professionals, commute to work via public transportation, making the everyday lifestyle and "pedestrian culture" of New Yorkers substantially different from the "car culture" that dominates most American cities. This pattern is strongest in Manhattan, where subway service is better and traffic is worse than in the outer boroughs. Even the city's billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is a "straphanger" (subway commuter), and can be encountered on the train to City Hall each morning.

Related Topics:
New York Subway - Michael Bloomberg - Straphanger - City Hall

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The great majority of Manhattan residents live in apartments in what is usually seen as a very expensive and crowded housing market, although there are immense neighborhoods of suburban-style homes in the outer boroughs. The median sale price of a Manhattan apartment in 2004 was $670,000 http://citi-habitats.com/press/viewarticle.php?article_id=432, with prices in the outer boroughs lower but rising. Many residents rent apartments, and some areas are under rent control and rent stabilization laws. With space at a premium, lack of closet space is a common problem, and self-storage is a strong local industry.

Related Topics:
Rent control - Self-storage

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Current issues

No other American city has experienced the effects of gentrification to the same degree that New York City has. Beginning primarily in the 1990s, although in some cases earlier, neighborhoods that had been seen as less desirable or unsafe became entirely transformed by the arrival of young professionals, often preceded by artists and "hipsters". This process is exemplified by the cases of Williamsburg in Brooklyn and Manhattan's East Village and Lower East Side. Even such cultural landmarks such as CBGB have been forced to close because of the process. Although gentrification generally has led to lower crime, more business activity, and higher land values, many of the native residents of these communities have been adversely affected by the skyrocketing housing costs associated with these rapid changes.

Related Topics:
Gentrification - 1990s - Some cases - Hipsters - Williamsburg - East Village - Lower East Side - CBGB

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After the September 11, 2001 attacks, pride in the city and the New York way of life increased for many, though others may have shown signs of paranoia. Nationally, Americans felt increased solidarity with New Yorkers. Today, there is a palpable sense of optimism in New York, fear of terrorism has lessened dramatically, and a massive confluence of transportation infrastructure projects promises to greatly expand the city's economic potential. Drastic reductions in crime have changed "the ungovernable city" of the past into a remarkably civilized place, and recent polls show that a vast majority of New Yorkers think the city "is moving in the right direction."

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