Why New York Seduces Us

Why is New York so popular? By most objective metrics (safety, cleanliness, efficiency, etc.), the city is mediocre at best. The city is an unapologetic juxtaposition of contradictions, yet it exerts an outsized pull.

Paris is aesthetically consistent; Tokyo is behaviorally consistent. Harmony, in either case, requires a shared ideology and a visible coherence toward which the city steadily moves. This is precisely what New York rejects. New York has no final intention. Like a Hegelian dialectic, it recognizes itself only after the fact.

A writer may work in many styles, but over time a distinct voice emerges. Style can be named, categorized, and imitated. Voice cannot. It is recognized only retrospectively. We can’t explain it; we resort to something like, “That’s so Fran Lebowitz!” The writer never fully intends this voice; it forms through sustained tension, revision, and contradiction.

This is how New York operates. Its dialectical pressures constantly shift its styles, as the unexpected transition to the Mamdani administration makes clear, but a recognizable voice persists. “That’s so New York!” The city does not stabilize its identity in advance; it discovers it through conflict, failure, and reversal.

Many popular cities now actively reshape themselves to meet tourists’ expectations, a kind of projective identification. Even Tokyo increasingly risks this. New York, by contrast, already carries a largely negative image: dirty, dangerous, abrasive. It has little incentive to perform an idealized version of itself.

Harmony is static. It is achieved through uniformity and conformity, often at the expense of those who do not fit. New York refuses this bargain. It externalizes its contradictions and neuroses, making them public and granting its residents permission to follow suit.

Stasis and conformity do not lead to self-discovery. It is precisely because New York is uncomfortably intense that it becomes formative. The city is seductive because it threatens discovery. It attracts because it repels. It embraces us because it challenges us.

New York has no stable style; it is, instead, a pure and unmistakable voice.