London, the New Big Apple?

March 30, 2007 — -- London is set to overtake New York as the capital city of the 21st century. Says who?

Well, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for one. Speaking at New York City Hall in January, the mayor cited a report by the consultancy McKinsey, which found London snapping at the heels of New York.

London, Bloomberg warned, is going to steal New York's thunder as the world's financial capital, thanks to greater job creation and a more welcoming financial environment. If that isn't enough to make proud New Yorkers a tad nervous, the current issue of New York magazine ought to do it. Its cover story? London (The Other New York).

"If Paris was the capital of the 19th century and New York of the 20th, London is shaping up to be the capital of the 21st," writes Matt Weiland and Eugenia Bell.Predictably, the article has unleashed a storm of discussion on both sides of the Atlantic, with bloggers defending their chosen cities with gusto.

I say chosen cities, because several of the people writing about this have been brought up in one city and now live in the other.

People like Melissa Whitworth of The Daily Telegraph, who moved from London to New York in 2001 and has lived there ever since.

"This is a wonderful, lively debate -- and one that I write about almost daily," Whitworth told ABCNEWS.com. For her, the choice couldn't be clearer.

"I don't care how many skyscrapers you build in London," she said, referring to London Mayor Ken Livingstone's claim that the city could have 20 skyscrapers within the next decade. "You can't make up for the shoddy service and the exorbitant living costs by raising a few tall buildings. And then, there's the transport issue."

Yes, the transport issue.

Most London residents will have had some experience of the particular hell that is rush hour on the underground. To hear Swamy -- a 31-year old Indian consultant who's lived in London for almost three years -- tell it, not a week goes by in the summer without him spending at least 10 minutes locked in an underground train carriage with no ventilation and no sign of movement, thanks to the age-worn excuse of signal failure.

On the other hand, the New York subway, as Whitworth points out, "is air-conditioned in the summer."

As for the few days in the year when London sees snow? Well, as someone once said to me, you might as well call in sick, given how long it can take to get from one point to another.

And yet, London has its charms -- quite aside from its burgeoning status as a financial capital. The city's culture is unbeatable: Galleries are free, theater and concert tickets are cheap, museums are plentiful and again, free. Then, as Eugenia Bell points out in a new book on London, there are the city's famous street markets and a teeming collection of secondhand bookstores, its best feature according to some.

At any rate, the city's population growth knows no bounds. Despite being a prohibitively expensive place to live (yes, more expensive than Manhattan), London now attracts a record number of immigrants.

In the New York magazine story, Weiland and Bell estimated that close to 40 percent of London's inhabitants were born outside the United Kingdom. That trend looks set to continue, thanks to the expansion of the European Union. Poles, Romanians, Bulgarians -- for many East Europeans, their top destination is not another European city, but London. They come to learn English and take advantage of the opportunities offered.

"There is no question that today London has become the destination of choice for immigrants," Weiland told ABCNEWS.com.

Traditionally, New York has been the melting pot of the world, but that may change soon, particularly when it concerns the migration of skilled youth. Steve Suchting, a 31-year old Australian scientist who studied in England, considered working in New York but is now based in Paris. He perhaps typifies the skilled labor force that both the United States and the United Kingdom hope to attract.

"I remember taking the bus from JFK, seeing the Manhattan skyline -- it felt utterly euphoric to be there, in a city which you have visited so many times in your imagination," Suchting said, recalling his first visit to New York.

"Today, however," he continued, "London seems like the place to be. It always felt a touch second-rate, a bit drab in the past, but now it seems so vibrant. The economy is doing very well, and its ethnic diversity distinguishes it from a place like Paris."

London's growing diversity is unmistakable, but to some, the city still isn't enough of a melting pot.

"Immigration is part of New York's history," said Whitworth, whose paternal grandfather is Indian. "Immigration officers at JFK notwithstanding, anyone can come to this city and make a life, and people welcome that."

Citing her own family's experience of racial abuse in London, she observed that "New Yorkers don't tend to criticize immigrants the way people in London do -- it shocks me to see how British tabloids go on and on about the influx of immigrants, about how they are a drain on resources."

Discussing a recent instance of racist behavior on the British reality TV show "Celebrity Big Brother," Whitworth said, "I just can't believe that all the bullying my father had to go through at school some 50-odd years ago is still happening today!"

Her words are echoed by Swamy, who studied and worked in the United States before moving to London.

"I don't recall ever feeling like an outsider in New York," Swamy said. "Whereas here, despite all the Indians in this city, I feel very conspicuous. Somehow, London, for all its multiculturalism, feels rather provincial compared to New York. New York does a better job of integrating its immigrants. I think I would rather live there."

Unsurprisingly, not everyone agrees.

Furthermore, plenty of people dislike having to choose at all.

When The Daily Telegraph recently invited its journalists to write about which city they preferred, New York-raised, London-based food writer Sally Peck wrote that it's "rather like being asked to write a dissertation on who I like better: my mother or my father. Fresh raspberries or wild blueberries. Chinese soup, dumplings or pizza. Husband or dog. Impossible."

"I do find it very difficult to choose," she told ABCNEWS.com. "My family is in the U.S., my in-laws live here. So I find the choice rather strange."

Even Whitworth conceded that "London to me is like the first love you break up with, whom you will always love but are no longer in love with. I do love London but am passionately in love with New York."

Others passionately hate the city, such as The Daily Telegraph's Shane Richmond, who groused, "Only a New York magazine could have written such a feature because only New Yorkers would want to start a debate about how well their city compares with another."

Well, if a look at British newspapers like The London Times and The Daily Telegraph is any guide, New Yorkers may have started the debate, but Londoners have absolutely no qualms about continuing it.

As Weiland said, the desire to compare the two cities "is a prevailing obsession among people in both places. Of course, it's a lost battle, because the minute you visit one city, you start pining for the other."