I haven't lived in manhattan ever, but I used to spend weeks there in 2014 for work (also in DC), and I've lived in London for a few months and now SF for years.

Cities generally have more variety of types of food (Burmese, Indian, Thai, Chinese, Italian, Jewish, etc.) that can be hard to find in the midwest (I grew up in the rural-ish suburbs outside of Buffalo - maybe not technically midwest, but close enough).

You have a lot of things close to you, you can walk out of your apartment and have a ton of options right here, in NYC you can subway anywhere else easily. The density makes things feel more like a community vs. houses spread apart where everything is by cars and strip malls.

In NYC you can go to the comedy cellar on macdougal street one night and Chris Rock or Louie CK might drop in unannounced to practice material (happened to me twice and I didn't go that many times).

If you live in a major city lots of friends pass through for one reason or another and you can meet up with them (this literally never happened in the suburbs of Buffalo).

There are also often more events and variety of people which can make things more interesting. It's also a lot different visiting vs. having your own place there for an extended time. Visiting is often more stressful because you don't have an easy place to retreat to.

The big one for me is the type of people there.

I grew up in a very rural area, and worked in some big towns/small cities before coming to London. Maybe it's the sheer mass of people, but it's _much_ easier to find people on my wavelength in London than anywhere else. And that's something I'd happily give up food options, cultural events, and honestly quite a lot else for.

Yeah - this is probably the main benefit.

Cities draw lots of people, typically ambitious people, but really all types.

> Ambitious people are rare, so if everyone is mixed together randomly, as they tend to be early in people's lives, then the ambitious ones won't have many ambitious peers. When you take people like this and put them together with other ambitious people, they bloom like dying plants given water. Probably most ambitious people are starved for the sort of encouragement they'd get from ambitious peers, whatever their age. [0]

I generally think the above is true, but even outside of ambition there's just finding people to have interesting conversations with that are also interested in the things you're interested in whatever that might be. That's a lot easier with you live in an area that has more people, especially when it selects for the kind of people willing to move to a new place. It's one of the reasons global hubs have an advantage over mid-size cities and why the bay area has a specific advantage when it comes to tech.

[0]: http://www.paulgraham.com/determination.html

> Coming from the Midwest, it feels very old, dirty and poor yet somehow expensive and desirable. What am I missing?

A counterpoint.

I don't live in NYC but do live in a similar major "coastal elite" type city.

When I visit the downtown areas of cities in the Midwest I'm always flabbergasted at how bad they are. Car culture reigns supreme, there's sprawl, while there's usually some portion of the inner downtown core that's seen a renaissance for the most part it's just empty buildings, especially at night.

Sure I can hop in a car and drive to some other area of the city limits, but that sucks. I'd rather be able to walk or take a short metro ride to my next thing. And my next thing. And my next thing. Similar, sure there are (usually) good restaurants. But they're also often a car ride away.

I'll grant that NYC is *so* large that it has similar issues. If one is in lower Manhattan and wants to get to Queens, good luck with that. But there's always something to do in a walkable radius.

Living a carless life is amazing. It gets hard if you're starting a family though, depending on what lifestyle you want to live.

There's a difference between a carless life and a non-car-centric life. I own a car and use it. But for most day-to-day business it's either unnecessary or worse than other options.

It's entirely possible that you aren't missing anything, that you aren't cut out for this kind of living. But many people are and find it highly desirable, many millions more than can currently afford to live here.

Also, I moved here for a job at a FANG. This is a top tier tech city, with salaries matched only by the Bay Area and Seattle. Compared to those other two I find NYC obviously superior.

I think the Bay Area and NYC have their own strengths. The Bay is more of a morning city and has a lot of nice nature and day trips around it. Easy to go to sonoma/napa, yosemite, tahoe, nice places on the peninsula, half moon bay, etc. The bay is much better for cycling too. I think the bay remains better specifically for tech (especially now with AI).

I think SF is also prettier than NYC and a lot smaller while still being a really nice place to be (also much better weather year round).

I love NYC too, it just has different advantages imo.

If you’re at a FAANG, especially at a $300k+ total compensation, NYC is very livable. In unit washer/dryer might be a stretch, but you can comfortably get a 1BR luxury apartment without much effort in a nice part of Manhattan.

Yeah. Between my girlfriend and I who live together (she's also at a FANG), we just barely clear 7 figures. It's easy for us to afford living here, and my commute is a short ten minute bike ride. I barely even ever take the subway, that's how convenient everything is.

The lack of housing isn't displacing people like us, it's displacing people who make less than us. And frankly our building is not nearly luxurious enough as it should be for how much we're paying for it, which is another symptom of the lack of housing construction over the decades (the average housing stock here is too old).

You are not missing anything. It would have been great if it was cheap (as in dirt cheap) then young people could use the city as a recreation/career building center before moving to something else. Or at least that's what the city was and some cities today are.

Today, it's mostly a playground for the very rich to park their money in cement because they cannot make up their mind about trusting the government.

Dirty and poor compared to what?

Virtually every other city anywhere in the western world, especially outside of the United States.

If you haven’t, I’d suggest you visit a large or mid size city in a prosperous north Midwest state like Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, etc.

People I know from the East Coast that have visited are typically floored by the quality of life in flyover country. Everything we have is new, life is affordable, top performing schools and communities are growing. The local governments are generally growth oriented with excellent infrastructure and relatively Low taxes.

Oh, but maybe not as many Thai/niche ethnic restaurants, so there is that downside, ha. But beyond your 20s, why anyone would consider calling NYC home is beyond me. Quality of life for my family > proximity to restaurants and bands.

> a large or mid size city in a prosperous north Midwest state

Which city?

It seems they gave you enough information: Minneapolis, Madison, Des Moines, Sioux Falls, Cedar Rapids.

The cultural, nightlife, and entertainment aspects. All cities are varying degrees of old/disgusting.

Cities are for the very rich and single people as far as I can tell. My guess is they are in those buckets. If not then they are the type of person that craves culture and finds anything outside of NYC culturally wanting. Part of it is also media indoctrination their whole life saying NYC is the center of the universe, and they feel a thrill being even a small part of that.