I often wonder if I will ever move back to New York City and then I remember the city’s identity dynamics. The answer is pretty simple!
New York City is very small in size. It measures 472.43 sq mi (1,223.59 km2). There are currently 8.5 million people living in the city. I truly believe there are people from every nation in the world living there. And while this is one of the charms of New York, the tribalism can become exhausting.
We all look for similarities in each other; it is our nature. The commonalities people look for in New York are, nationality, languge, food, and religion. Everything other essence of ourselves gets reduced to the pits of identity hierarchies. Of course, this is a survival mechanism. In a city where everyone is a minority, numbers matter.
In New York, this question has no interest in knowing where you were born. At least not initially. That is a follow up question if it wasn’t addressed in your carefully curated introduction speech. The question is designed for you to explain why you look the way you do.
In a city that divides itself by tribes, we have certain behavioral expectations from them, just like we do of brands and products. We are all competing to sell ourselves out to a status we all say we reject.
