Jul 05 2011 05:52 am

Posted by under July 5 Assignment

NYC vs Los Angeles

Perhaps the Great Depression helped NYC dodge yet another bullet on its journey to becoming the greatest city in the world. In the late 1700s Thomas Jefferson had decided that a swamp on the Potomac River was to be the capitol of the country. That had removed most political responsibility, NYC didn’t have to have monuments, the President’s home, or the meeting house of congress at its center. Instead, it devoted it’s space to making money, and the entities who owned the central locations simply had the most of it.The Great Depression had done the same, but in a slightly more specific manner. Instead of having Hollywood in Manhattan, various musicians, film companies and media companies moved west. At the start, in the 1910s, companies moved to escape licensing issues. Eventually, aided by the Great Depression, Los Angeles, and more specifically Hollywood, became the new Media center of the country. This allowed NYC to become a true financial center, instead of a jack-of-all trades.

Hollywood studios in 1922

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One Response to “NYC vs Los Angeles”

  1. Crystal Garris on 06 Jul 2011 at 7:44 pm #

    I understand what you are saying about New York being able to focus on one aspect, however, with the amount of people in the city and various cultures, who’s to say that Hollywood in New York would have necessarily been a bad idea? Granted, there isnt enough space in Manhattan alone, but there is always more room upstate. Maybe if that did happen, more parts of New York would have gone through these great changes and would be modernized, causing less congestion in the NYC area.