Sir, - Having recently visited Manhattan, I am amazed at the quality of life in that crowded centre of industrial capitalism and at how much Dublin could learn from it.
Skyscrapers (at least of the older, non-boxy type) built together in specific areas give a quasi-Gothic sense of grandeur, avoiding the gap-toothed effect characteristic of London, for example. Condensed populations, and travel which is often as much vertical as horizontal, result in a village-like sense of community, whereby you are constantly bumping into people you know.
There often seem to be more taxis than private cars on a given street. Public transport runs at all hours of the day and night. The consequence is that many people neither need nor want to own a car, and content themselves with hiring one if they need to drive somewhere outside New York City.
Late-closing bars mean that there is not the spectacle of public drunkenness around midnight as in Dublin (the result of people "drinking-up" quickly before the pubs close, just in time to miss the last bus). This is further assisted by a Mediterranean "food culture", which removes the focus from alcohol alone, and a huge variety of restaurants offering dishes from all parts of the globe. In New York people from all corners of the world contribute to the economy and to a multicultural quality of life (in contrast to the dreary ethnic homogeneity propagated by our home-grown conservatives).
An overlap between the sets of people with culture and money (in Ireland, alas, largely discrete) results in considerable private support for the arts, which has helped to make New York the art capital of the world for many years.
I could go on: co-operative schemes of apartment living, a flourishing municipal recycling scheme, air-conditioning units for a small fraction of the price you would pay in Ireland (why?), ATMs that read your card without swallowing it (and keeping it if they're having a bad day). . . - Yours, etc., Paul O'Brien,
Bertram Court,
Dublin 8.