New York City, New York
The Big Apple
Empire City, The City of Dreams
The City So Nice They Named It Twice
and Los Angeles, California
The Big Orange, The City of Angels
La-La Land, Shaky Town
NYC and LA are the two largest cities in the United States.
New York has the most people, with a population of 8.5 million, while LA has around 4 million people.
CONAN: 4 million people, yeah. That's a pretty big deal.
That's a big deal and I wanted to celebrate
so ladies and gentleman, let's do this. Jerry would you do the honors please?
Yes!
Here we go. Yeah!
We did it!
The New York metropolitan area, however, has 20.3 million people.
So about 1 in 16 Americans live there.
The Los Angeles metropolitan area has about 13.1 million people.
Both are cosmopolitan, world famous cities.
Two cities that never seem to sleep- always hustling and bustling.
Over the last century, the two cities have dominated and influenced the culture of the rest of the country.
It’s like the two forget the fact that the rest of us exist.
You see this on mainstream TV. Most national news and entertainment programming occurs in LA or New York, although LA has way more YouTubers than New York.
Both are by oceans. NYC by the Atlantic Ocean, and LA by the Pacific.
Both are diverse. We’re talking people flock from all over the world to these two cities to start new lives.
More than 37% of New York residents were born in another country.
Nearly 40% of LA residents were born in another country.
Almost half of the residents of LA are considered either Hispanic or Latino.
New York has historically been the main way immigrants come to the United States.
In both LA and New York, you’ll see lots of ethnic enclaves, or neighborhoods dominated by one ethnic group.
Both tend to have younger residents compared to most other cities around the United States, although LA’s a bit younger.
It’s really freaking expensive to live in both cities, although LA is about 8.3% less expensive than New York.
But it’s a lot more expensive to buy a home in LA.
The median household income in both cities is similar.
The unemployment rates and job growth rates are also comparable.
Related to how expensive it is in both places, of course, is how crowded both cities are.
While LA is notorious for its bad traffic, by some metrics New York’s traffic is actually worse.
Here’s another surprise. If you look at the entire metro areas, LA, the city known for its sprawl that goes on for miles and miles, has a higher population density than New York.
But city proper, ain’t nobody as dense as New York City.
We’re talking 27,000 per square mile in NYC versus around 8,000 people per square mile in LA.
The average commute time for both cities is way higher than the national average.
New Yorkers use more public transportation than LA folks BY FAR.
I mean, there’s really no comparison.
In LA, people own cars. They drive. In New York, over half of the households don’t own a car.
75% of Manhattan residents don’t.
New York has by far the highest rate of public transportation use of any American city.
1 in 3 Americans who use mass transit regularly live in New York or its suburbs. New York has one of the largest subway systems in the world.
Los Angeles? No offense, but your mass transit system is a joke.
Larry David: Ah come on, open the door!
Does this go to Olympic and Hauser?
Bus driver: Not all the way, you gotta transfer Larry David: Transfer?
Olympic and Hauser?
Excuse me, sir, I'm supposed to go to Olympic and Hauser?
Man: Yeah, it's easy man. Get off at the La Hacienda stop. You got a couple options.
Larry David: Ok, would you tell me when that's coming up?
Man: I'm not your babysitter. Figure it out.
Both cities used to be under the control of different European countries.
New York used to be New Amsterdam, under the control of the Dutch in first half of the 1600s.
Los Angeles used to be under Spanish rule in the late 1700s and early 1800s, and then under Mexican rule for awhile.
Yeah, let’s go into some history of the two cities. Eh?
But before I get too far in New York, I should say this video is a collaboration with M.Laser, who just released a video about the history of New York.
M.Laser: Hello!
He goes in, like, way more detail than me. But I will give you some bits and pieces here.
So New York, it used to be settled by the Russians.
M.Laser - Actually no, the New York City area prior to the European colonization was inhabited by the Lenape people
Ok well but New York city was named by the British after the York Peppermint Pattie
M.Laser - No it wasn’t
Agh just go do your video already
M.Laser - OK but I am going to need your help.
Wait, what did you do?
M.Laser - Don’t worry about it
Yeah so anyway, now that you’ve got some history of New York, here is a bit of the history of LA.
When the Spanish arrived in greater numbers in the 1700s, around 5,000 Native Americans known as the Tongva resided in the Los Angeles basin.
NYC was founded in 1624, 157 years before LA.
To put that in perspective, Denver is 160 years old.
And for decades, Los Angeles was just a sleepy little colonial town along the Pacific Ocean.
It was founded on September 4, 1781, by 11 Mexican families, all known as Los Pobladores.
Even after the Americans took control of the town in 1848, it remained small.
However, that began to change after the completion of the Santa Fe railroad line, which connected Chicago to LA in 1885.
After that, the population exploded, going from around 15,000 to 100,000 by 1900.
In the early 1900s, filmmakers began flocking to the Los Angeles area to escape Thomas Edison and his Motion Picture Patents Company in New York.
You see, in Southern California they could escape the ridiculous licensing fees from Edison’s monopoly.
Once the filmmakers got to LA, they stayed for the wonderful weather and wide range of geographical locations and architectural styles nearby.
So Hollywood fueled even more growth, as well as innovative aircraft construction during World War II.
After World War II, growth remained steady, and while today old industries in the city have dramatically declined, new ones have taken their place.
The top three industries in Los Angeles today are entertainment (no surprise there), aerospace, and tourism.
The top three in New York are financial services, media, and communications.
New York residents are generally more well educated than LA residents.
About 39% of New Yorkers have at least a bachelor’s degree compared with 32% of Angelenos.
It gets quite a bit colder in New York, although it can get pretty hot in the summer.
It has a humid subtropical climate, believe it or not.
New York has four seasons. LA has two.
A wet season and a dry season.
LA has what they call a Mediterranean climate, with moderate, lovely temperatures year-round.
And yeah, it can get fairly dry there, which often can cause wildfires that swallow up neighborhoods.
Speaking of disasters, LA also has to deal with earthquakes being in the Ring of Fire, and more smog than New York, but it’s not as bad as it used to be there.
New York might have a bad winter storm here and there, but usually by the time hurricanes make their way up the East Coast to NYC they have weakened considerably.
LA has mountains nearby, New York doesn’t.
New York is actually, like five cities. Really they are administrative divisions.
They call them boroughs.
They all used to be independent places but consolidated.
The five are Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island.
New York has stricter laws overall than LA. For example, it has a ban on smoking in public.
New York also has a higher tax burden than LA.
New York has lower property taxes, but slightly higher sales taxes and much higher income taxes.
What about tourist attractions? Well New York’s got Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, One World Trade Center, Central Park, The High Line, The Rockefeller Center, and the Empire State Building.
LA’s got Hollywood, Universal Studios, Disneyland, Griffith Observatory and Park, The Getty Center, Santa Monica Pier, and Venice Beach.
Professional sports teams? Of course.
New York’s got the Yankees and Mets for baseball, the Giants and Jets for football, the Knicks and Nets for basketball, and the Devils, Islanders, and Rangers for hockey.
LA’s got the Dodgers and Angels for baseball, the Chargers and Rams for football, the Lakers and Clippers for basketball, and the Kings and Ducks for hockey.
Other random things. New York has a stock exchange.
LA does not.
LA has hosted the Olympic games. New York has not.
New York was tragically one of the sites of the deadliest terrorist attack in American history.
LA hasn’t had a severe earthquake since 1857, back when hardly anyone lived there.
That was a magnitude 7.8 on the Richter scale. It this were to happen today, it would be perhaps the deadliest natural disaster in American history.
LA has palm trees, New York does not.
Strangely, when Los Angeles was founded, it didn’t have any palm trees at all, by the way.
Alright, so this is getting way too long. I better wrap this up.
The bottom line is, the two cities definitely symbolize two different cultures in the United States.
You know, the whole East Coast/West Coast divide.
When you’re at both places, you really feel like you’re in the middle of it all. While the two try to dominate over the whole country, it’s nice to know they keep each other in check.
I'm here with the Cynical Historian
and Grant Hurst
and I'm just going to ask them what they think the differences are between New York and LA
Cypher: Pizza. That's it.
Grant: In LA, no one uses their signal on their cars. In New York, no one drives cars.
Mr. Beat: Which do you prefer? Personal preference. Cypher: LA
Grant: Probably LA, yeah.
Mr. Beat: Ok, why?
Cypher: I can still drive, and being able to like, have a house?
Grant: Well yeah, as expensive as LA is, it's still cheaper than New York.
Mr. Betts: Woah, woah. Mr. Beat.
New York versus LA? It's no contest!
New York all the way! We have the best people
the best cultures, the best landmarks
the best buildings, the best pizza
the best bagels, the best baseball
It's New York all the way.
And I know this is a total rip off of that Casey Neistat angle. We still got him, too!
What did we miss? What did we get wrong and right? Come on now. I know a ton of you live in either Los Angeles or New York or travel to both regularly.
Which is better? Personally, I think I’d rather live in LA honestly.
Also, do not forget! This is a collaboration with my friend M.Laser.
He released a video about the history of New York City, and I’ve linked it below.
So go watch that now if you haven't already.
What else do you have to do, really? The laundry? The dishes? That can all wait.
M.Laser actually has a whole series on the history of cities around the world. So that means you skip out on a bunch of chores.
Thanks to my friends Mr. Betts, the Cynical Historian, and Grant Hurst for appearing in this video. Go check out their channels as well, and thank you for watching!