Turing test for cities

I had a lovely time spending a week in Toronto. The week before that, I had a nice visit to Stuttgart Germany. Now I am back in NYC.

The cultural difference between Stuttgart and NY was obvious. It’s not a question of “better” or “worse”, just an observation that the cultures are strikingly different. Even if there were no difference in language or accent, I would be able to very quickly tell which was which.

For example, in Stuttgart people follow rules quite strictly — even in cases where those rules make no logical sense. It seems that the idea of following a rule is more important than the reality of its effect in any particular case. Another way of saying this is that even informal rules appear to operate with the force of law.

Of course NY is completely different. People here will follow a rule only if they think that rule makes sense. In fact, a group of people will often collectively — not just individually — agree to break a rule (or a law) if they think the situation warrants it.

To my mind Toronto feels a lot more like NY than like Stuttgart. People approach situations, well, situationally. As people negotiate the city, a lot of common sense flexibility and reasoning goes on, and I like that.

Of course there are cultural differences between NY and Toronto. So I wonder, how long would you need to hang out in one of the two cities before you could tell which culture you were in (assuming you couldn’t cheat and use clues like famous buildings or differences in spelling or pronunciation).

Between NY and Stuttgart, this kind of “Turing test for cities” would be very easy to solve. Between NY and Toronto, I suspect it would take somewhat longer.

I wonder what would give it away first.

2 thoughts on “Turing test for cities”

  1. Manhattan feels to me like three copies of downtown Toronto, stacked up on top of one another. (I live in Toronto, and visit New York often.)

  2. The giveaway is at the corner of every street: the “walk/don’t walk” lights. If someone waits even though there is no traffic around, then they are not ‘negotiating the rules.’

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *