New York No Longer ‘The City that Never Sleeps’ Reveals New Study by Badoo.com
New York ‘humiliated’ in hunt for world's most 24-hour city
• Cairo ranks top; New York, ‘the city that never sleeps’, trails in 32nd place
• Has the Big Apple become the Big Sleep?
• “This will confirm fears that New York has grown sterile and sleepy.”
• Ranking of world’s most 24-hour cities based on analysis of 120 million online interations
The city that never sleeps has been caught napping by a global study of the world’s most 24-hour cities.
The study names Cairo, the strife-torn capital of Egypt, as the globe’s “most 24-hour” city. But New York, famed as “the city that never sleeps”, ranks just 32nd, well behind not just London, Paris and Rome but an embarrassingly long list of other cities.
The first global ranking of the world’s “most 24-hour” – alias “most nocturnal” – metropolises, comes from an analysis of 120 million online chats and flirts made over two months on Badoo (www.badoo.com), the world’s largest social network for meeting new people, with 122 million users across 180 countries.
“This will confirm the fears of those who say that New York has grown sterile and sleepy”, says Lloyd Price, Badoo’s Director of Marketing. “Some will call it a humiliation.” Others will feel it a wake-up call.
The city that once defined urban buzz now ranks in the global buzz stakes one place behind Moscow and 15 behind London, to which it sometimes compare itself.
It shares 32nd place with Marseille in France, Palermo in Sicily and – whisper who dare – Montreal in Canada.
Canada! How have the mighty fallen?
What’s more, it’s not just the Big Mango (Cairo) that makes the Big Apple look like the Big Sleep. It’s also Montevideo, capital of Uruguay, a close second in the global rankings; and Beirut, capital of Lebanon, in third.
Yes, these are all far-flung cities where hotter climates favor nocturnal living but almost every European capital also makes New York look like Sleepytown.
London ranks almost twice as high, at 17th in Badoo’s global rankings. Paris places 18th and Rome 27th. They themselves turn out to be drowsy towns compared to Madrid, Europe’s most nocturnal capital, and joint sixth with arch-rival Barcelona in the global rankings for cities generally.
Brussels, capital of Belgium, ranks 11th globally, ahead of Istanbul, Turkey, in 12th and Lisbon, Portugal, in 15th.
So, New York ranks over 20 places behind the capital of Belgium! And Belgium, of course, is the Canada of Europe.
Closer to home, even Miami beats New York, at 30th in the global rankings.
Some New Yorkers have angsted in recent years that the city has grown “suburbanized” and “lost its soul”. The bankers, they say, have driven out the bohemians. Yes, New York is a safer place to live but also a duller one.
Badoo’s study finds that online chatting and flirting in Cairo peak at nearly 1am, a full three hours later than in New York. “Our figures suggest that New Yorkers are climbing into bed at around the time that their Cairo counterparts are preparing to go out”, says Lloyd Price.
Badoo’s rankings are based on its own “Nocturnal Index” for each city. This blends measurement of peak times for chatting and flirting with a “Night/Day ratio”, comparing online activity levels at night with those by day.
Almost all the cities in Badoo’s world top 20 register more online chatting and flirting at night – defined as 7pm to 7am – than by day. New York is among cities that register the opposite.
“New York has become so gentrified and Disneyfied and the community boards have gained so much power that nightlife has gotten the shaft in favour of quieter neighborhoods that are [felt to be] more amenable to rich residents and tourists”, says Michael Musto, high-profile columnist on Village Voice, the city’s influential weekly newspaper.
“Of course, the irony is that most rich people and tourists would LOVE nightlife if they got a taste of it.”
So, has the time come for New York to get real, wake up and rebrand? From, say, “the Big Apple” to “the Big Sleep”? Or, maybe, “New York, the city that barely wakes”? No, it doesn’t quite have the same ring.
WORLD’S 10 MOST NOCTURNAL CITIES
|
Rank |
City |
Peak Time (pm) |
“Nocturnal Index” |
|
1. |
Cairo (Egypt) |
12.45 |
2.40 |
|
2. |
Montevideo (Uruguay) |
10.75 |
2.40 |
|
3. |
Beirut (Lebanon) |
12.30 |
2.33 |
|
4. |
Malaga (Spain) |
11.30 |
2.32 |
|
5. |
Zaragoza (Spain) |
11.15 |
2.30 |
|
6.= |
Madrid (Spain) |
11.30 |
2.28 |
|
6.= |
Barcelona (Spain) |
11.30 |
2.28 |
|
6.= |
Valencia (Spain) |
11.30 |
2.28 |
|
9. |
Seville (Spain) |
12.15 |
2.25 |
|
10. |
Buenos Aires (Argentina) |
10.45 |
2.25 |
• The “Nocturnal Index” for each city is based on both its “Peak Time” for chatting and flirting and its “Night/Day Ratio”, comparing activity levels by day and night. “Cairo ranks above Montevideo due to having a later “Peak Time”.
EUROPE’S 10 MOST NOCTURNAL CAPITALS
|
Rank |
City |
Peak Time (pm) |
“Nocturnal Index” |
Global Rank |
|
1. |
Madrid (Spain) |
11.30 |
2.28 |
6.= |
|
2. |
Brussels (Belgium) |
11.00 |
2.23 |
11. |
|
3. |
Istanbul (Turkey) |
11.45 |
2.22 |
12. |
|
4. |
Belgrade (Serbia) |
11.15 |
2.21 |
14. |
|
5. |
Lisbon (Portugal) |
11.30 |
2.19 |
15. |
|
6. |
London (UK) |
11.30 |
2.15 |
17. |
|
7. |
Paris (France) |
11.15 |
2.12 |
18. |
|
8. |
Rome (Italy) |
11.30 |
2.00 |
27. |
|
9. |
Moscow (Russia) |
12.15 |
1.91 |
31. |
|
10. |
Prague (Czech) |
10.45 |
1.76 |
41. |