When we think of the United States we sometimes refer to its (maybe questionable) foreign policies, the wars and the patriotism. We also refer to “the American culture” as is seen in popular culture and Television: the world of Mc. Donald’s and fast food, baseball and American Football, summer camps, thanksgiving, fraternities, teenage drivers, giant dimensions and life made easy.
This, the so-called “American way of life” also relates to the well-known “American Dream”: the big house in the suburbs in which a typical nuclear family of a mother, a father, a son and a daughter live with their dog and probably two or three cars, depending on the age of the children.
Life in New York City may in some ways reflect the “American way of life”, but it is far from “the American Dream”. New York is a busy city, with a skyline full of skyscrapers, a heavy traffic and a multi-culturally shaped society. For many it is the place for business and a good job. For others, a city in which they can be themselves, blurred in anonymity in such a cosmopolitan setting.
You may or may not think it is a place in which you want to live. In fact, not all New Yorkers actually call New York City their home. Many of those who can be found hurrying on the streets of New York City actually go home to a nearby town, sometimes even to a town or city in a neighbor state, combining a train ride with a drive back home. Maybe it is those people who fulfill their own version of the “American Dream”.
New York City is a mixture of people from all over the world. While on a ride on the subway you will hear many languages and see great diversity. Tourism plays also a great tole in this diversity. We recommend when planning your trip to New York to book both travel insurance and hotel in advance. Check our travel checklist for New York.
As a tourist in New York City, it is interesting to see the non-tourist New Yorkers and the way they live their daily lives. When the traffic light turns green and people rush to cross the street and continue their way, you see many lives crossing one another on the intersections, each of them with their own history.
You may not be able to get to know many of these lives histories just on a few days in New York, but it is interesting sometimes to go beyond the tourism offer and see what the city is really about. Who are the locals? Where do they go? What do they do? Which kind of meals do they like better? What is it like to live a day in their lives?
If after you leave New York City you are able to answer to some of these questions about one or two New Yorkers, you can say you have had the whole experience. You will have seen New York City from a local perspective and will be able to answer: is that how you thought of “the American Dream”?
