This past weekend, my wife and I were in New York City (Manhattan) for my cousin’s wedding. I’ve been to NYC a number of times and frankly, I’m not a big city kind of person. After being in the city for less than hour, I started complaining to my wife. She didn’t want to hear it, so I kept my mouth shut for the rest of the trip. We got back to San Diego on Monday and I was back in my element.
On Wednesday, I took a nice stroll (1.5 mile walk) from our office to the San Diego Convention Center for CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment. This walk took me through downtown San Diego and so many things struck me as different from New York. First off, the weather. I realize that the city can’t control the weather, but it does have an effect. One day in New York, it was pretty nice, but then got cloudy and rained one day. Second, the streets were much cleaner in San Diego. Third, the city seemed to run at a much slower pace; in New York (in all areas except Little Italy), people were moving so quickly to get from point A to point B.
For some people, NYC is a great place to live; for me, it isn’t. San Diego has a lot of people, but it isn’t as dense. Up until I started my job 11 months ago, I really didn’t explore downtown San Diego. Since then, I’ve walked a bit around downtown and it isn’t that bad of a city. There has been a lot of revitalization and it really shows. If you’re willing to walk, parking isn’t all that bad, either.