Why do people live in New York? why do people love New York?
Some people love the performing arts, every conceivable ethnic restaurant, or museums.
Some people live in New York because they were born and rasied there. Some people live somewhere their whole lives just because of that. Other people gravitated to New York because of work in some key businesses, such as finance, publishing, advertising, which have major jobs there.
All of us can ask ourselves, why do we live where we live? Do we live there because we love our hometowns? Are we there by default, because we were born and raise there? Or did we choose to live there because of work, because it’s a spouse’s hometown, or other reasons. The same reasoning can apply to why anyone lives in New York.
I live in Connecticut, and a distinguishing feature between the home town people you describe and too many New Yorkers, both real and transplanted, is a suggested superiority of being in New York City, and a concomitant denigration of places that are not New York City.
I have spent plenty of time in NYC, and to me the most notable feature is the Dustbuster Drone that is constantly hovering around my left rear pants pocket.
One time, decades ago, I was determined to not even turn off the car, go and pick up my friend in Queens, and drive back to Connecticut, figuring I’d only be out the toll for the Tri-Borough Bridge. As I passed by JFK, some fun loving youths dropped a piece of concrete onto my windshield. The $7.00 trip (plus gasoline) turned into a $257.00 trip very quickly.