A unique elan surrounds these world capitals. Corporations and entrepreneurs worldwide boast of locations in these cities to add prestige to their reputation and validate their success. After all, to compete - and survive - in these markets is to have arrived...
New York is the American answer to Paris, London, and Rome all at once: the fashion of one, the finance of another, the sheer theatrical scale of them all. To do business there is a credential; to spend a long weekend there is an education in how a city can be everything at the same time.
For the Arizona traveler, the contrast is half the pleasure. Trade the wide desert horizon for canyons of stone and glass, the quiet for the current, and come home reminded that our own Valley luxury is the freedom to choose your pace - something New York never offers, and never apologizes for.
Originally published in View AZ Highlife Magazine, Spring 2008.