Media Fascination with New York

So what is with the pop culture fascination with destroying New York, anyway? New York is easily America's favorite city to see destroyed in disaster movies, and you'd think that in a post-9/11 world this would be particularly distasteful. Yet, the destruction goes on.

New York is destroyed at least in the following: "Independence Day," "Escape from New York," "I Am Legend," "The Day After Tomorrow," "Cloverfield," "Planet of the Apes," "A.I.," "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow," "Godzilla" (1998), "King Kong" (any year), "War of the Worlds," (Tom Cruise version and original Orson Welles broadcast).

What's more, New York is among the favorite settings for chick flicks. Granted, one of the top rules of chick flicks is that the heroine must have a dream job working for a) an advertising firm, b) a design firm, or c) in print media of some form, though print media about a) or b) is the ideal chick flick dream job. And since that's the case, New York becomes a logical target. (Think "Hitch," "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," or "The Devil Wears Prada.")

I find this particularly surprising having grown up in Southern California and been exposed all my life to how important the film industry is there. People forget how many jobs that Hollywood provides and how reliant media outlets there are on celebrity information and news. Could it be, that L.A. may have a bit of envy for New York and a strange fascination with their speedy, in-your-face, stressed out ways that are so at odds with Southern California's mellow roots? I'm not sure.

And I suppose it's not such a bad thing. New York's a fun place to visit, and I suppose it would be a fun place to live for a short time. But still, there are a lot of great cities in the U.S. to say nothing of the world. Plus, I can't imagine how much it costs to film in New York compared to nearly any other city, so if anyone has a take as to why we like to see New York blown up and/or glamorized in the media, I'd love to hear it.