Why San Francisco is not New York, an article by Nick Bilton for the New York Times in response to somewhat (expectedly) meh feature (Is San Francisco New York?) by a magazine called New York, created a lot of buzz and chatter in the twitter sphere. Emily Chang talked about it on her show. I somehow missed all the hoopla, being busy with Structure Data, in New York. Having lived in both places for roughly equal amount of time, I can say that whole SF/New York debate is result of magazine editors having as much imagination as taste of a boiled pea. 

The difference between two cities was made obvious when I walked past a Nike store in Soho, where I say a lot of people lined up to buy limited edition sneakers that are result of a design collaboration between Nike and Givenchy designer, Italian born Riccardo Tisci. I know there are a lot sneaker-fans in San Francisco Bay Area, but I don’t see lines outside stores as often. On the other hand  I have often encountered “Standing in Queues for Sneakers” phenomena in the Big Apple. Back in SF we line up for new iPhones.