Wednesday Poll: Embarassing Moments And Centers Of The World
The votes are in.
Last week we asked: which moment is more embarrassing? Was it (a) spitting while talking in a small-sized group, or (b) telling a long rambling story that was supposed to be funny but ends up falling flat in a medium-sized group? In a relative landslide (77-23), the long rambling story beat the inadvertent saliva shower. My best guess is that many people went with the following logic: the spitting is an unfortunate occurrence, almost out of your control - it could happen to anyone. The long rambling story, meanwhile, is more an indictment of your personality. No one wants to be "that guy".
Anyway, this week, we want you to gaze into the future. With massive development taking place in China and India, with Russia slowly but surely regaining its place amongst the world's great powers, with the city of London experiencing a resurgence, and with Dubai seemingly hell-bent on global domination, we want to know which city is most likely to replace New York - if any - as the center of the world by 2030. Your choices for potential capitals are: Dubai, London, Moscow, Mumbai, New York, and Shanghai. We're leaving the meaning of the world "center" up to interpretation - financial, cultural, tourist, diplomatic, any combination of the above, whatever.
Last week we asked: which moment is more embarrassing? Was it (a) spitting while talking in a small-sized group, or (b) telling a long rambling story that was supposed to be funny but ends up falling flat in a medium-sized group? In a relative landslide (77-23), the long rambling story beat the inadvertent saliva shower. My best guess is that many people went with the following logic: the spitting is an unfortunate occurrence, almost out of your control - it could happen to anyone. The long rambling story, meanwhile, is more an indictment of your personality. No one wants to be "that guy".
Anyway, this week, we want you to gaze into the future. With massive development taking place in China and India, with Russia slowly but surely regaining its place amongst the world's great powers, with the city of London experiencing a resurgence, and with Dubai seemingly hell-bent on global domination, we want to know which city is most likely to replace New York - if any - as the center of the world by 2030. Your choices for potential capitals are: Dubai, London, Moscow, Mumbai, New York, and Shanghai. We're leaving the meaning of the world "center" up to interpretation - financial, cultural, tourist, diplomatic, any combination of the above, whatever.
Labels:
Wednesday Poll
7 comments:
for the record i'd like to say that giant amusement parks (ahem, dubai, ahem) dont qualify as cities.
duly noted.
I don't think London will wait till 2030 to lay claim to the title of 'world capital;' it's already doing so, and with good reason. London is becoming much more multi-cultural than NYC, and could soon become a more important financial centre (it's become the number one destination for rich Russians and Indians).
i agree. i also think the US's retarded visa scheme - where hardworking, supremely talented, highly educated, english speaking, young people are often denied the chance to work there - will work against it in the medium term. combine this with the general feeling of ill will the US is greeting foreigners/immigrants with (and i'm not just talking about M&Ms (Muslims and Mexicans) either) and you have the base set up for NYC to be overtaken. england is doing an excellent job of gobbling these people up, and many other like them.
shanghai will be too polluted, mumbai too messy, moscow too cold (and too crime-ridden), and dubai, well, as naqiya said, dubai will be a giant shopping mall/amusement park - some place you take your kids for a vacation or you and your wife hop over for a shopping trip, but nothing more.
It's a tie between London and NYC for me -both extremely expensive to live in I might add, but NY has this charm to it that has allowed it stay the center for so long. Good question though!
it's london over nyc hands down, any day from now till 2030. two major reasons, forgetting US's relatively temporary ill-will + immigration policies, are 1) geographical location - i.e. the ease with which london can be accessed from so much more of the world than nyc; and 2) the short term gains of having a "mosaic culture" in the UK/Canada versus the US's assimilating "melting pot" where every immigrant community settling must 'become' american. in the UK and much of europe, this attitude is substituted for letting communities preserve their strong cultures by letting them live in concentrated pockets, not requiring them to assimilate to 'become' british, and that might be linked with an exclusivist view of the home culture whereby the migrants can't 'become' english in the first place! As to this last point, the US feels it has an upper hand in dealing with its immigrants than europe, in that assimilation is better than letting 'primitive' cultures thrive in our land, because assimilated americans can't be 'enemies' of america.
oh, and the rest of the cities don't count in my opinion. white ppl conceding their stronghold in the world by letting some gulf/asian/russian city become a REAL center of the world? only as far as it looks good to say so in the media. with a big cheeky smile.
dubai is leading with 10 votes. really? i mean seriously guys dubai?? not cool
Post a Comment