I went to the Big City (Baton Rouge) today and felt extremely naked the entire trip to and from the city (including LSU campus) because I left my EDC behind with the exception of 1 knife.

I am developing a strong dislike of cities more and more all of the time!!! This is the price of "staying out of trouble"...

wildman800, cities are not so bad. However, when you do not frequent them, I can see discomfort when in one.

But leaving the EDC behind? Whatever for? I can see paring it down a bit for some places, but I still carry some things even when I get on a plane or wlak into a court.

Come up to NYC, spend a weekend, I'll have you feeling comfortable in no time. it would be a long shot, but maybe I can wrangle a ride for you on something running through Hellgate.

Oh, I'd love that - I live in Queens - did get a ride through the Sunnyside carwash once (GG1), and got to run the old Harold Tower a few times - always on a weekend. For some reason, the guy letting me do it didn't want a 13YO screwing up rush hour (30+ years ago)... I did get to sit in and watch a few Morning rush hours

I lived in NYC (St George, Staten Island) and worked out of Governors Island for 2 1/2 years. I sailed the LIS, East river, Hudson River up to Albany, Ny, Upper and Lower NY Harbors, Raritan Bay and River, Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, and the Arthur Kill. That was all year round. I do miss going by Woody's Junkyard/Staten Island in the Arthur Kill. Icebreaking on the upper Hudson River (above Poughkeepsie) was always a fun thrill!!!!

It was a real surprise watching the twin towers falling down since my DW worked on the 17th floor of the North Tower while we lived in NYC. We used to meet in the basement (mini mall) for lunch and go raid the nearby bars after work.

1979 - 1981 was a truly great time to live in NYC. We had some truly great times there!!!

I think the Junkyard is dwindling. It was last I knew, but I have not been by it for a few years.

My favorite places to work were always the East and Hudson Rivers. Running Hellgate underpowered, pretty much what I was all the time, was fun, like a toboggan. Breaking ice in the Hudson was also fun, so long the engineer kept water flowing through the heat exchanger.

NYC is a much better now than in 1979-81, although for some it may not be as much fun. It is cleaner and safer.

Hell Gate was always a wild ride at max tide!!!!!

Absolutely.

Both the worst, that is hardest, and most fun time to run it. Until something goes wrong. I got very lucky once, after one of my mates messed up.

I find it easier to navigate in cities if I see them as a wilderness with diverse wildlife. Like all wildlife they all have their own behaviors and niches in the environment. Like valleys on either side of a ridge each has its own unique ecology.

Withing each zone you have herbivores and carnivores. Hunters and hunted, opportunists and scavengers. Many are cliff dwellers and some live underground. Some enjoy the sunlight while others are mostly nocturnal.

Like naturalists everywhere you have to mix blending in, so you don't disturb their natural behavior, with actively avoiding looking like one of the prey species to the more aggressive inhabitants.

I knew it was time to leave NYC when I realized how mean it was making me. The last straw was the day I was walking home after work and passed through a murder scene: gawkers, cops standing around a doorway bs-ing over something under a sheet, and scattered puddles of blood on the sidewalk that I had to dodge. The only thought that ran through my head was:

"Can't these (*&^%*%$#@ get out of my way?!"

Ten steps further up the block I stopped cold as I realized what I was becoming. I got out the map that night, and started making a list of other places to live.

"...cities are not so bad..."

We were in our nearest "big city" recently (not really all that big, but size is relative. Compared to where we are currently hanging out, anything over 20 people is big). Made the mistake of going into Super Wally World, on a weekend to boot. Huge crowds, unattended rugrats running wild all over the place, 90% of the people had a cell phone screwed into their ears, paying zero attention to the person/people they were with, almost everyone speaking in a foreign language. Not for me, thanks...

Whoa!!!I didn't realize so many of you had (or do) live in NYC...We use to live in Staten Island.....too funny....we were on Arden Av by Arthur Kill Rd.....I trained as a medic in Manhattan (St. Vincent's aka Vinny's) and worked Brooklyn North and South Districts as well as S.I.

Ah to hear of our old haunts....thanks for the memories.....

Having lived in both extremes (hermit style rural life to deep in the heart of Manhattan), I have to say I much prefer rural living. You give up some conveniences, but life is much less stressful, at least for me. I did enjoy a lot of my time in NYC, but I never got comfortable there. I would go back in a New York minute for one of those bagels or a slice of Grimaldi's finest. The commute thing really drug me down, and I've never been a fan of sardine can humanity on the stroll from the office to and in the subway, where you can't help be in constant physical contact with others.

What really goads me about urban living, though, are all the restrictions. I can't equip myself as I see fit, nor can I relax my guard whenever I feel like it. I don't feel nearly as in control of my life or my surroundings in the big city as I do out in the boonies. That is the sacrifice I am having an ever more difficult time accepting.

Also, in a rural community, I think you feel more significant. Your actions and decisions carry more impact on the community than they ever could in the city. As others indicate, you can get killed in the city and most everyone in it couldn't care less, whereas in a rural community it is going to effect almost everyone around you.

I work in Manhattan 3 days a week, but live in Bucks County PA.

I have found that, for me, this mix has given me a perspective on the Big Issues that is complex.

I can spend time in New York in my office and experience direct working interaction with:

Wasim - an Islamic former Pakistani (just became a citizen this year!) who speaks English, French, Bengali and Pashtun fluently.

Joanne - one of 14 children born in Jamaica, she sits across from me and plans her wedding obsessively.

Ayoung - sits next to me. She's from Korea, and uses Skype to video chat with her family "back home".

Daniel - a Russian national, who lives for 3 months at a time in the US & Japan.

Andrew - he's here from Wisconsin, which is, as far as I can tell, no less foreign compared to New York as the places some other folks are from.

James - a gay adult who has been living with his partner for longer than most people stay married.

John - a NY native who is getting closer and closer to his pilot's license.

The political views in the office are not as "liberal" as you might expect - in fact, I'm often surprised by the divergence from the expected.

As far as crime and "filth" - well, let me put it this way. Given a choice of walking through Central Park at 2:30 AM or walking through Gary, Indiana at 2:30 PM, I'll take Central Park ANY TIME. Also, you haven't experienced what emergency preparedness really is until you've been around a large-scale emergency response incident in NYC. If there's only 1 thing they learned from 9/11, it's how to respond and coordinate efforts.

As much as I love living in Bucks County, I do have to admit that it's occasionally frustrating to hear people spout off racist and ignorant statements about the people who live in cities. I'm especially annoyed by the statement that crime rates are lower in rural areas - I'm convinced that it's enforcement rates that are lower. I've been around too many incidents that would have put someone in jail in NYC that are willfully ignored when I'm in the country. Hell, I was recently on a call for an accident where some drunk rolled his truck with his 8 year old son in the front, and the cops called the drunk's brother to come get the kid while they hauled dad to jail - and the guy shows up in his car drunk as hell - and the cops just told him to go home and they'd drive the kid over later in a patrol car.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that you can say you don't like cities, and that's fine - but basing your opinion on what you see on TV or read in papers, rather than ongoing direct experience, is not only weak-minded, it's downright dangerous because it trains your mind to close off and not see what new interpretation of the situation around you might be best given current circumstances.

If you continually say X is true, and your logic for that assertion is based a tautology founded in your acceptance of mediated information that gives you a basis for your conclusion about X, you are succumbing to the dangers of acceptance of opinions and selected agenda-driven data point presented as actual facts.

Opinions posing as facts can form as a result of the pedagogy of the media's advertising-driven business, which seeks to maximize our reactivity while minimizing our ability to think rationally.

So, to get this back OT - a city is not a place where you are immediately stripped naked and thrown to a mob of angry minorities who will carve you up and toss your carcass into the river. Yes, there are restrictive laws about personal defensive items - I can argue from facts that these laws are too restrictive, I can argue that it's "every man for himself" when the SHTF in New York - but then when I experience "SHTF" moments in NY (Blackouts, Steam pipe explosions, building collapses), the facts keep knocking my opinions to bits. Here, at least, the authorities are ready.

For NYC, my EDC has been reduced to a small flashlight, some water, some dust masks, a pocket knife, small FAK and a radio. I keep an MRE in my desk drawer and $100 in my wallet. It's all good.

I cannot emphasize how the people in NYC can surprise you about how humane and civilized they can be. It seems very different from the NYC is saw growing up in person and watching the news (I grew up in a suburb about 35 miles from NYC). The blackout in 2003 saw New Yorkers behave and have fun. The bars were packed with people socializing and that's about it. I couldn't expect more. It was not the 1977 blackout, everything changed.

As far as minorities carving you up, I know the first patriiotic displays I saw on 9-11 were from minorities.

There are people we have and would rather not. There are people who will carve you up. But I would also not readily want to travel into some town, in an area of the U.S. in which I am an obvious stranger, be there when or after TSHTF and think I am going to be greeted with open arms by all. I know people will protect their friends and neighbors readily in many areas, but you'll find many New Yorkers that will readily take care of strangers.

You do have to kick yourself a lot to keep you from being to get the #^@& out of my way. You may have to fight to keep you sticking your neck out to help others, because they are total strangers.

You know, that is good to hear. My wife has been to NYC, and has plans to show it to me sometime in the next couple of years. You have made is sound a lot better to me...

If you are going to come to NYC, you are likely to want to see touristy things and places, whihc are all usuaully in our safer areas. So you are unlikely to get into areas that are not safe. Almost all of these are in areas that are very safe. It's the safest big city in the world, and it's got it's bad areas. So, it's safer areas are usually very safe.

I worked with a lot of guys from small towns when I was on tugs. As a rule, I was happier with them heading to Manhattan when given the chance that any place else. They got in more trouble and fights when let loose in smaller communities.

If and when you do come, just ask for advice. I'll be happy to give it.

Martin, a nice contrast in perspective to my post. Admittedly, mine is based on a childhood of relative freedom in a mostly wilderness environment, and I just don't appreciate many of the benefits of big city life because my values are different; not better or worse than anyone else's, just different.

I did have a lot of fun in New York when I worked there. There are a lot of things in New York City you will not find anywhere else, or only in the largest cities. A lot of what I experienced at first was novel, but when the novelty wore off, and the routine kicked in, there was still plenty there to keep me interested. I can tell you for sure I would rather be there than here in Florida right now.

Alas, methinks there's too much of Burt Gummer's spirit within me. Being 50 miles from the nearest airport, supermarket, or hosptital can be a real pain too. I guess I am just missing my old ways too much lately.

dont feel bad wildman800, my buddy taurus is actually phobic of cities or large places. I tease the hell out of the guy about it and he will most likely punch me in the face for posting this but he is ACTUALLY unable to live in a large city or he will go insane. There actually is a name for it but I dont remember what it is. Put him in the open country and you will find no happier man. Put him in downtown Toronto and he is like a cat in a cat carrier. The sounds of hundreds of people all talking at once or rush hour traffic and he literally gets flushed, panicky and needs to go somewhere quiet.

I torment him all the time about it.

I will GLADLY take a day off from work and show you around, there's a lot to see and I know the ins and outs. Keep that in mind. The offer is perpetual.

Hi Martinfocazio,

Just don't take your chickens onto the New York Subway,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9P6sG35f2U&feature=related

I haven't spent too terribly much time in big cities, as in actually living in the city. But from Vancouver to Cairo, I love big cities. There is always something to do, something new to try. Theatres, museums, and public transportation, the urban jungle with all the layers of diversity that implies. I also love being out in the wilderness, or where the wilderness is just a stone's throw away. Easy to go out and hike, fish and go climbing.

The places I don't like, and this is not about safety or anything really high minded just personal taste, is suburbs. They don't have the easy access to the benefits of urban life, you can't ride the subway to an art museum or find an obscure shop or restaurant. Just malls and big box stores. People have tiny yards, but there aren't really any parks to go visit. Plus their still usually pretty far from the woods or mountains.

Count me out of the suburbs.

+1 on that Art. I've never thought of it like that.

I have to say I love New York (But can't stand the Yankees.) I visited many times and have had great experiences. We went to Windows on the World 9/8/01. I also go into Boston on a regular basis and love it there as well (a little bit more than NYC of course) Growing up (not done yet) we used to party in Worcester. That was scary, I've had more situations there than Boston and NYC combined.

I'm not a city boy though, I wouldn't want to live in a city.

Blitz

I can understand that. I would much rather be in the woods myself.

Blitz

NYC has it's good points, but for me they are all ones I can enjoy more as a tourist.

It was the commute that ground me down. Walking through Midtown at rush hour--at every corner a phalanx of people steps off the curb and marches toward each other, and there is nothing to do but turn your shoulders and plow through. That's where the over-the-shoulder stare comes in, because if you meet someone's eye you have to acknowledge them as a person and try to get out of the way, but there was no where to go. Every step was in the way. That, combined with the fact that the only people who talk to you are scammers (in Midtown and touristy areas, not so much in the neighborhoods) drove me crazy. I hated the fact that you couldn't afford to be decent and polite.

By the time I got home, the last thing I wanted to do was go out, so I only visited those great museums, shows, etc. when friends came into town. The rest of the time I may as well have been in Ohio (except for the great Cuban food and the sirens).

The crazies got to me, too. A young lady was shoved in front of an approaching train by a loony at my usual subway station, which was bad enough, but even worse was that there were two more murders during the next week, copycat crimes in the same station! Not one, but two people heard about it and thought it would be a good idea.

The open-minded attitudes were nice, but there is still a tendency of New Yorkers to dismiss the rest of the country as unworthy because it's not NYC (i.e. "fly-over country"). The solution I've found is living in a college town in the mountains. You get smart, open-minded people from all over the world, but still live in a town with a 15-minute "rush hour" where strangers hold doors, wave back using the whole hand, and start real conversations at the drop of a hat.

To each their own, of course.

I WILL keep it in mind, thanks for the offer...

Thanks, will keep that in mind also...

Reminds me of my subway ride this morning, a little. A few of those in my car did not behave like regular subway riders, they were tourists.