Communication
The cost of living – relative to other cities, the cost of living is arguably high in both the cities, going as high as hundred times higher in some instances. According to the Expertise cost of living index, New York City (United States of America) has a higher cost of living, ranking 169 per cent higher than Prague (Czech Republic), the central reference city. Tokyo (Japan), being 135 per cent more expensive than Prague, has a slightly lower cost of living than New York. This means New York is 34 percent more expensive than Tokyo in Japan. The cost of living data used in the index is based on pricing information collected from the sale of different products in different cities.
Crime rate – the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has tabulated and ranked major cities according to reported homicide cases per 100,000 people. According to this data, Tokyo is far much safer (Zimring 45, recording a rate of 0.4 homicide cases per 100,000 people as compared to New York City which ranks highly in homicide cases at the rate of 5.6 reported homicide cases per 100,000 people. This shows that it is safer to stay or live in Tokyo as compared to New York.
Air and Land transport- both cities are quite busy which daily arrivals and departures using air transport. However, New York City is believed to be busier in terms of air transport as compared to Tokyo. The former has three airports which are The John F Kennedy International Airport, La Guardia, and Teterboro Airports, while the latter has two airports within its business district which are Narida and Haneda Airports that serve fewer people per day as compared to the three New York airports. When it comes to land transport, both cities predominantly use rail transport with Tokyo having 304 kilometers of rail length with 285 stations whereas New York has 373km of rail length and 468 stations. Tokyo also has a public bus fleet size of 1462 in comparison to 4344 public bus fleet size of New York.
Population- the total number of people in the city seems to be higher in Tokyo in comparison to New York. According to studies, Tokyo has a total population of 13.43 million people while New York has a total population of 8.33 million people. According to the two cities’ demographic information, the proportion of men is 48% in Tokyo and 47.49% in New York. This implies that both cities are composed of a higher proportion of the female population.
Cultural diversity- New York enjoys a lot of cultural diversity in comparison with Tokyo. Tom Wolfe once described the New York culture as part of the weather because it always seems to be in the air. New York also boasts of being home to major cultural institutions like The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts. Tokyo doesn’t seem to enjoy this status as it is majorly composed of the local Japanese population, unlike the more cosmopolitan New York.
Tokyo hosts major global financial institutions as their headquarters but doesn’t enjoy the ease of doing business that New York enjoys. Regulation is also freer in New York than Tokyo, meaning it is easier to do business in New York than Tokyo. Despite the bureaucracy and strictness experienced in Tokyo, it hasn’t affected its business much as it tops the world as the richest city in the world with a gross domestic product, GDP, of 1520 billion US dollars, and is followed closed by New York with a GDP of 1210 billion US dollars in the second position in the world.
Works Cited
Zimring, Franklin E. The City That Became Safe: New York's Lessons for Urban Crime and Its Control. New York: Oxford UP, 2013. Print.
