Which City Should You Actually Live In?
New York City
The Full CalendarBig-city family
You want everything, all at once, and preferably before the kitchen closes at 2 a.m.
Take the quiz to get your own result.
Take the quizTypical profile
Where this result sits on each scale.
Pace
Order
Character
Overview
You don't want a city that's comfortable. You want one that keeps asking what else you've got. New York suits people who get bored easily and bounce back quickly: you can lose out on a job at noon, meet someone who changes your year at six, and eat the best dumplings of your life at 1 a.m., all within twenty blocks.
Your days there would be dense. A run along the Hudson before work, lunch eaten standing up, a gallery opening you hear about at five and are standing in by seven. Weekends would be a cheerful negotiation between the plans you made and the better ones that turned up on the way.
You'd want street life and a decent subway line: the Lower East Side, Fort Greene, Astoria for the Greek bakeries, or Bushwick if you don't mind your neighbor's band. Visit in October, when the heat has broken and the light goes gold between the towers.
- Ambitious
- Restless
- Bold
- Social
What the city gives you
Options at every hour
Whatever you're in the mood for at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday, from Ethiopian food to stand-up comedy, someone in this city is doing it. You'll never run out of things to say yes to.
A city that keeps up
You walk fast, talk fast and decide fast, and here nobody asks you to slow down. The impatience that gets you side-eyed elsewhere just reads as normal.
Doors you can knock on
New York is full of people who started with nothing but nerve. If you're willing to ask, the opportunity you want is often two coffees away.
Reinvention is expected
Nobody much cares who you were back home. Change careers at 34, start a band at 41. The city assumes you're somewhere in the middle of your story.
The hard parts
Rent that bites
Your apartment will be smaller and pricier than seems possible, and the kitchen may be a hot plate beside the bed.
Try this: Decide the one thing you'll pay for, whether that's light, space or a short commute, and stop mourning the rest.
Hustle as a hobby
Every conversation drifts to what you're working on, and resting can start to feel like falling behind.
Try this: Keep one evening a week that produces nothing at all, and guard it like a meeting with your boss.
Lonely in a crowd
You can know three hundred people and still have nobody to call when you're sick on a Sunday.
Try this: Pick two friendships and invest like a regular: same bar, same night, every week.
Love and friendship there
Dating
Dating in New York is fast, plentiful and occasionally exhausting. You'd have great first dates, like a dive bar in the East Village or the Brooklyn Bridge at midnight. What you're really after is someone with a life as full as yours, who doesn't need you to slow down but can get you to sit still now and then. The right person becomes the best part of a crowded week, not one more thing on the calendar.
Making friends
Friends here come in layers: work friends, gym friends, people you only ever see at one specific bar. You'd have an itinerary ready for every visitor from home. Keep a couple of friends who knew you before you moved.
Work culture
This is a city for people who want to be close to where things get decided. Finance, media, fashion, theater, tech and food all run at full volume, and ambition is the default setting. You'd thrive in roles with visible stakes, fast feedback and a real chance of getting noticed early.
Roles that tend to fit
- Journalist
- Startup founder
- Theater producer
- Chef
- Lawyer
- Gallery director
Good days and homesick days
On a good day
- A Sunday that starts with bagels in Brooklyn and ends at a show you got rush tickets for at noon.
- Walking forty blocks because the evening is too beautiful to go underground.
- Watching the skyline from the Staten Island Ferry and thinking, slightly smugly, that you live here.
What you might miss
- August heat, a subway car with broken air conditioning, and a landlord who won't call back.
- Feeling behind everyone, all the time, even on the days you got a lot done.
- You'd miss a backyard, or a friend who could drop by without a calendar invite.
Fictional characters with this streak
- Holly Golightly (Breakfast at Tiffany's)Reinvents herself completely and eats breakfast on Fifth Avenue as if she owns it.
- Miles Morales (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)A Brooklyn kid with too much energy for one borough.
- Midge Maisel (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel)Turns the worst night of her life into a stand-up set and never looks back.
How it compares
Your second-best home
- LisbonYour second-best home: another city that lives on the street and stays up late, just slower.
A stretch, but worth a visit
- CopenhagenEverything works and everyone leaves at four. It would drive you a little mad, and might teach you how to rest.
Other results in this quiz
- TokyoClockwork trains, hidden bars, and a perfect bowl of something around every corner.
- LisbonLong lunches, steep hills, and the kind of evening light that makes you stay.
- CopenhagenBikes, candles, harbor swims, and leaving work at four without a flicker of guilt.