Is New York Really in the United States?

The only major city I have lived in is Atlanta, but I've visited more than my share of major cities in the US and world-wide, including New York twice in the last year. They all have a little flare that distinguishes them. In Atlanta it is the hip-hop culture and inefficient highways, in Chicago it is the hot dog and pizza places all over the place and the northern accents, in San Francisco it is the beautiful hills and trams, in Berlin it is rebuilding to re-become an economic center in Europe, in Barcelona it is the boulevards lines with trees and late nights at restaurants and bars along the Mediterranean Sea, in London it is the rainy weather and royalty, in Manila it is the jeepneys and tricycles (their version of busses and taxis) haphazardly driving people around.

For most cities, there is a distinct culture that one feels when present. And in the USA, that feel is a little different, mainly because of the people's dependence on cars. I have only driven in the southeast part of the US so it's not like I've been driving across country and experiencing life that way. I fly and take public transportation, even to places as close at Washington DC. Yet cars seem to dominate the roadways and cars seem to have precedence over pedestrians in most American cities, while in Europe busses dominate the roadways and pedestrians are placed in higher regard. Even London, one of the world's great and most modern cities, a place I expected to feel much more like America than the rest of Europe at least because of the language, has a distinctly European feel to it.

New York City, however, is hard to describe. It is a conglomeration of so many different cultures. It has no particular feel to it. Each time I walk the streets of Manhattan and go into shops, I find myself speaking French. New York is clearly not French at all because the French don't move so fast and don't build tall buildings, but it is the only other language I know. But NYC certainly doesn't feel very American either. The masses don't drive. They take busses and trains and taxis to go everywhere, the way Europeans do it. But there is such a big Asian population that I kind of felt like I was in China, but that is one major country I haven't been to so I don't have much to compare it to. Maybe it was just the area of New York I was in - I've spent more time in the East Village/Greenwich Village areas of Manhattan. In a way, though, a huge melting pot is kind of what defines the United States, and New York City certainly is that so maybe it is more American than any other city.