Like most people who live in the northeast, the biggest city I’ve been to before is of course New York City. New York is over double the size of Los Angeles’ population, and it shows in both the structure and the density of people you’ll see on an average day in New York. New York City is divided into five boroughs; Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. While all these boroughs vary in population and landscapes among other things, each borough has various different types of neighborhoods within themselves. The boroughs have both suburban neighborhoods and urban neighborhoods, and even somewhat rural neighborhoods in Staten Island. As a result of the varying types of neighborhoods in New York City, it’s difficult to summarize the entire city. Although there are several different parts of the city, when I went, I thought it was predominantly urban. Crowded with skyscraper esque buildings and thousands of different people from all different backgrounds and cultures, New York City is somewhat of a microcosm of the melting pot that the United States is. I grew up in a town in North Jersey called Wayne. Although Wayne is only around twenty minutes from Manhattan, Wayne is a predominantly white town. In New York City, the population is far more diverse. I saw people of all ethnicities, which is often the case is populous cities such as New York.
Of course what separated New York from Wayne was the amount of people I saw along the way. The sidewalks were filled with thousands of people, most of which were on their way somewhere, whether it was work, or to attend to some sort of event. Besides the people lounging with friends on stoops or leisurely walking around with friends, the people in New York all seem to be in a hurry to get somewhere. This makes sense because of all the businesses in New York. There were plenty of billboards, bright lights, and big advertisements, which are also common in cities, but New York had more than any other city I’ve been to.
Urbanization Blog 