New York sitcoms

as someone who now lives in manhattan, i try to find out the image outsiders have of life in new york. i think The Economist has a done a fine job through its analysis of sitcoms based in new york.

“Sex and the City” stars four young career women and is ostensibly about the difficulties of finding a man in New York. It has a point. According to an analysis for The Economist, there are 93 men to every 100 women among single New Yorkers aged 20-44. In the country as a whole, and in most other big cities, there are more young single men than young single women. What the programme mostly shows, though, are the joys of chatting, shopping and going out to glamorous places. The six young friends in “Friends” are poorer and don't have quite the right invitations. They hang out together, discuss who is hanging out with whom, then hang out some more. “Seinfeld” is about a self-satisfied comic who occupies himself by being mildly witty about the trivial frustrations of urban living and his eccentric neighbours.