I don’t really think Frisco makes any claims to be anything much beyond a suburb of Dallas.
So laugh. Laugh like you never laughed before! Just keep your pity to yourself, thankyouverymuch. And don’t forget to laugh again because there is nothing worse than a sour, bitter-grape eater without a sense of humor.
Ah so Zebra was joking about feeling hated, consider me wooshed.
That pretty well sums it up.
Phoenix isn’t really a city; it’s just a collection of franchise shops and gas stations interspaced with retirement communities and tract housing, all painted the same uniform color of sandy tan. They have golf courses not because golf is so popular but because they need the color to keep from going desert blind. I do like Rula Bula, though. But Phoenix is what Los Angeles would be without the beach.
Kansas City, which tops my list of utterly generic Midwestern cities that nobody would miss if it suddenly disappeared into a sinkhole, fits your description of smaller cities exactly. There’s the Nelson Atkins, the Westport District, and…er, a bunch of former cow-town bedroom communities that have become indistinguishable suburbs. Yawn. I’m pretty fond of Milwaukee, though, even if it is frozen solid three months out of the year. It’s kind of like a miniature Chicago, right down to the layout of the city.
New York City? A self-fullfilling and self-aggrandized prophesy, a would-be Nouveau Paris with pretensions of grandour, overglamourized and mythologized, but in reality dirty, overpriced, and despite its scenic icons (Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, World’s Fair Park), lacking in any kind of cohesive sensibility. It’s hideous taste in architecture–witness the late World Trade Center towers–with the exception of Central Park, lack of public spaces doesn’t even allow comparison to the great metropolises of Europe or the preIndustrial cities of the Mediterranian or East and South Asia. And despite the extensive public transit system, it’s not really a fun place to move around in; it’s certainly not a “walking city” like Boston or San Francisco. And I’m sick to death of hearing about the bloody Yankees. I’d take Seattle or Toronto any day.
Babylon was the birthplace of civilization; Rome, the former center of the Western World; Osaka, the fortress of a powerful but circumscribed society; London, the home of modern entertainment; Beijing, the host of the enigmatic Forbidden City where ancient rulers controlled the lives of millions by whim and whimsy. New York City is a phase, best known for being the site of the real estate scam of the millinium; it’s a puff of wind in the hurricane of history, to be blown away like a piece of litter on Montauk beach.
Plus, Woody Allen slobbers on about it, and I can’t stand him, so it gets marked down right there. 
Stranger
Dude, the one thing I learned was ‘Never call it Frisco’. The natives hated that, as of the mid-90s.
Having spent a dozen years on The Island before returning to Queens! Baby!, I feel that I am in a good position to answer your question. Yes, you are Chopped Liver. Sorry, but thems the facts and all that.
If I’m going to be accused of being egotistical, I might as well play it up!
Sorry guys, why is the Nickname Frisco so frowned upon? Can I use San Fran?
As I said, I really like SF. So it might help if I know what to call it.
Funny though, Joisey is deliberately used to insult New Jersey and I take it as a joke. Frisco is nothing but a shortening of the name and it is insulting?
I didn’t realize the skin got that thin in San Francisco.
Jim
I’ve been in NYC an average of 3 days a week for the last 16 years, and I don’t think it’s the greatest city in the world. What is is, I think, is the most powerful. The most influential, the richest (maybe not per capita), the most diverse, the most dynamic, the most alpha city.
It is not the biggest. (Probably a good thing: bigger cities tend nto be either poorer or more crowded.) It is not necessarily the most civilized or the most cultured. It is definitely not the best laid out, the best governed, the most livable, the friendliest, or the most humane. Which are all, or ought to be, qualities of greatness in an urban area.
I don’t think New Yorkers are by nature egotistical. What they are, it almost goes without saying, is provincial. Certainly in regard to their own country. New York doesn’t see much need to be part of America, except in a democratic (small d and large D) sense. It welcomes immigrants by the thousands, but there’s an irony in that. It knows (and cares) more about their homeland and culture than the way people live in Flyover Country or Mongolia or Scandinavia.
New York tends to look out across the oceans. It focuses on the teeming shores and the tempest-tossed, because those are who need it most and those are who pretty much made it. The world needs New York. But not in every way and above all others.
I said provincial earlier. You can’t quite blame them for that: New York tends to make other places look stale and confining, at least in a material and intellectual sense. (New York itself is stale and confining physically, and sometimes spiritually.)
What is it about New Yorkers’ praise of their city that reminds me of the “No True Scotsman” argument? They often feel unsatisfied with other places simply because they’re not New York, or not enough like New York. No New Yorker ever admits homesickness; they just compare wherever they are now, and usually, there’s an understood superiority. You can’t quite pull that off if you’re from anywhere else. Nowhere else is a law unto itself like New York.
Nope, you bastards hate us and that makes me happy. For many reasons but mostly because it is a sign that we are getting over 9/11.
That and the fact that we know WHY you hate us. It’s not because we are rude or in a hurry or vulgar, or have unions or even egotistical. We know why you really hate us.
You are just jealous. Pure and simple. You know that either that your town is in fact inferior or that you couldn’t hack it in this town or both.
[Bronx Cheer]
I think (although I can’t be sure because I’m not living in Z’s head) that he layed it on thick for a comic effect but the sentiment is true enough. You don’t get to be the world’s greatest city and the center of the universe if your citizens prefer to be pitied than loathed.
After 9/11 the city let out a collective sigh of relief when, after about a month or so, the police and the firemen got into a fistfight with each other at a memorial service. Not because it’s cool to get in a fistfight and not because we’re so tough, but because all that kissy mamby-pamby crap just didn’t sit right.
San Fran’s OK. Ess Eff’s OK. The City’s as far north as Santa Rosa, east to, well, Reno & Calaveras County, and south to Monterey.
“Frisco,” IMHO, just sounds ugly. Plus there is a city actually named “Frisco” in Texas that most people have heard of, if only because of SF.
I never knew it was supposed to be derogatory… I just use it as a friendly nudge to the people I know from around there.
Guh. I hope that’s a whoosh.
Probably my least favorite thing aout NYC is that (woefully misplaced) conceit that people that don’t live there couldn’t live there. Implying, of course, that anyone in their right mind would live there if they could.
I’ll get ready for the inevitable whacking that comes with this, but I’m getting tired of the whole martyr complex, too. <hijack> I also don’t understand why the spouses and families of (mostly) high-paid professionals were given money from the 9/11 fund. Isn’t that what Life insurance is for? Maybe I misunderstood the purpose of the fund…
Whomever referred to KC as a dull Midwestern town…you’re right. Add Des Moines, Cleveland, and 90% of the other places as well. Milwaukee…nice place, reminds me of Chicago, really. Cincy’s not too bad, and Minneapolis is good, too.
Check the Mobil dining guide (OK, not Omniscient, but a good gauge)…Chicago has 1/3 the restaurant population, and the same number of 5-star places, and 1 more 4-star. I win!
-Cem
I totally agree.
And I have the same kind of feeling about Americans in general. I think it’s sickening how every single politician has to make the point that we’re the greatest. It’s absolutely disgusting.
So, my fellow Americans, yes, we come from a great country. Now just shut up about it already.
Another thing that irritates me (and apparently not just me) is New Yorkers who are so concerned with who can or cannot “hack it” in their town. New York is not the Marine Corps. The Statue of Liberty’s inscription says nothing about “looking for a few good men.”
Yeah, this is the age of Singapore and Bombay. Goodbye New York!
Born in Brooklyn - lived in NY for my first 40 years. Most of the “rude NY’ers” I met were from other places and for some reason created this “tough” pose which included rudeness for some reason. I really don’t remember any actual natives being rude.
Where are you legally going to get a pistol in NYC?
It’s nice to know that someone gets it. But then again you are a fellow New Yorker. New York is like jazz. If you have to ask, you’ll never understand.
This is one of the things the you either get it or you don’t. There are many people who live who don’t get it.
I’m just glad that we live in a country where ragging on NYC and New Yorks is OK again. It wasn’t for a while and it bugged me. Do you think this thread would have gone like this in 2002? Nope. Nobody but the biggest troll would have dared posted the OP and everyone would have jumped to the cities defense.
Well we don’t need your help defending our stinking city. Go ahead and say every nasty thing you want to about the place. We can take it.
Hey now! We’re all about tooting the NY horn here. The problem is that the Island doesn’t get any press unless it’s an Amy Fisher kind of crazy story.
Queens is just the western part of LonGuyland. You’re as much of a city person as my Suffolk County ass. Accept it, D_Odds…embrace it. Oh…and where do you get off dissing Long Island’s own Vinny Testeverde? You rapscallion!
I think you & I should have a fist fight. Then we should have a few beers and make fun of cities that aren’t New York. 
I kinda have to laugh about that claim to being the greatest city. My city is rather nondescript; that is, there’s no totally amazing buildings or awesome entertainment, but there are some great places to eat, the majority of people are kind and polite, it’s pretty clean, and a person can go for a walk through the park alone during the dead of night without fearing for their life.
I mean, just how great can a smelly, crowded, crime-ridden city be? No offense to any NYers who think this, but come on. Sure, it has a rightful claim to being a great city for many reasons. But the greatest? Yeah, right. I doubt any city could really claim that.