NYC vs SF vs LA

After splitting my time evenly between New York, San Francisco, and LA for about three years, a semi-humorous comparison of the three cities.  I also have pseudo-memoires of my time in each written below:
- Talking to an Engineer in Silicon Valley
- Talking to Ivy Leaguers on Wall Street
- For LA, some acting instructor insisted that everything we do is because society says to, that if not for society telling us to, we wouldn't even bother going to the toilet and just sit in our own crap.  No further comment needed.

NYC	SF	LA
Money and 9-5 life.	Make the world a “better” place.	I just want to be “happy.”
Honor and integrity.	Self-righteousness.	Whatever's popular.
Old luxury.	Minimum viable product.	Comfort.
Live to work.	Work is play.	Work to live.
Passions are just hobbies.	Careers are passions.	Passions are careers.
Dreams of a normal family life.	Dreams of saving the world with an app.	Dreams of fame and popularity.
Podcast stars.	Tech stars.	YouTube stars.
Lack of adventure.	Lack of imagination.	Lack of authenticity.
Authority, rules, and norms.	Tech and "social validation."	Feelings and feel good.
Hardened.	Pampered.	Doesn’t want to move.
Weight on shoulders.	Guilt chipped at every turn.	Room to breathe.
Unfairness is part of life.	Fight unfairness with unfairness.	Unfairness is ok if I benefit.
Too busy to meet you.	Too important to meet you.	Too lazy to meet you.
Does it make money?	How's it improve society?	What's it got to do with me?
Repackage and relabel.	Create new and uncharted.	Consume and regurgitate.
Mechanical Turk.	Machine automation.	No automation.
Man on foot fetched by app.	Autonomous cars and drones.	Laundry machine finally w/o coins.
Backup servers in the same building.	Backup servers across the globe.	Not my problem.
GPS doesn’t work.	Can’t drive w/o GPS.	Can’t drive with a GPS.
Drives by cross-street name.	Follows GPS into a river.	Drives past you 4 times at full speed.
Four seasons.	Fog.	Smog.
City never sleeps.	Even the mall closes by 8pm.	Pockets of life in wasteland.
Can get 3 things done a day.	Can get 10 things done a day.	Takes all day just to get somewhere.
Subway goes everywhere.	Subway literally on one street only.	"Subway."
Trains frequent and on time.	Buses late and rarely come.	Bus driver laughs and tells you to chill.
$1M for a studio apartment.	$1M for a closet.	$1M for house of cheap wood.
Old but functional buildings.	Tries to look like a warehouse.	Actually is an old warehouse.
People everywhere.	Siren noises everywhere.	Motorcycle noises everywhere.
Homeless give speeches.	Homeless scream and grab at you.	Homeless rant about politics.
Rats on the subway tracks.	Pigeons too fat to fly.	Garbage on every sidewalk.
Musicians jamming on street corner.	Needles and feces on street corner.	Get shot on street corner.
Celebrate with festivals.	Celebrate by vandalizing own city.	Celebrate by being stuck in traffic.
Order in desperate times.	Violence in the name of justice.	Punch whoever’s in closest proximity.
Compassion for your neighbors.	Compassion for anyone except your neighbors.	"Compassion" for the hand that feeds you.
Shop away your tears.	Celebrate your failures.	Take pride in your weaknesses.
Spend free time killing time.	Spend free time working.	Spend free time "chilling."
Board gamers.	"Gaymers".	YouTube gamers.
Broadway.	N/A.	Hollywood.
Silicon Alley (Midtown).	Silicon Valley (Entire Bay).	Silicon Beach (Santa Monica).
Wall Street.	Embarcadero / SOMA.	N/A.
Brooklyn.	Oakland.	Los Angeles.
By the book.	Doors open wrong way (fire hazard).	15 minutes just to get the menu.
Decent food at all prices.	Expensive food or crap food.	Expensive crap food.
$15 for 2 slices of toast and sides.	$15 for just the toast.	$15 for burnt toast.
Apologizes for bad service.	It's a feature, not a bug.	But I already got your money.
Your fault for being different.	Your fault for being in the way of progress.	Your fault for letting me get away with it.
High cultured.	Mono cultured.	Blurgh-whatever cultured.
Rules.	Numbers.	I tried.
Punctual.	10 minutes late.	Hours to days late.
Passive aggressive.	Aggressively passive.	Blatantly shameless.
Conformatively independent.	Independently conformative.	Misery loves company.
Backed by what famous people said.	Backed by correlation = causation.	Backed by gut-feel.
Sales pitching in casual conversation.	Lectures w/out knowing anything about you.	Always talking about food and weather.
"Helps" by telling you it's not possible.	"Helps" by telling you to change your goal.	"Helps" by just saying random positive things.
Offended by how you do things.	Offended by your opinions.	Offended by your success.
Trying to politely be impolite.	Trying to save you from yourself.	Trying to justify taking from you.
Because you're uncivilized.	Because you're literally a bad person.	Because you have more than enough.
Don't see it, so it's not true.	Didn't hear a word, but this is the answer.	Everything's subjective, so I can't be wrong.
Mind your own business.	Forced democratization of your life.	Willingly sacrifice your life for fame.
Think of how others remember you.	Think of your impact on the world.	What’s it matter if you die anyway?
At least I have manners.	At least I'm politically correct.	At least I have an opinion.
B+ on everything.	Always either A+ or F.	A for effort.
Everything works half decent.	Half new, half assed.	At least there's the beach.