When I see people from another city, I almost unfailing have a moment of “so what’s it like in _?” I can only say NYC is so normal for me I have nothing with which to compare it, make snide jokes about how Swarthmore is a dry town with (almost) no crime, or comment on how often it is night in Edinburgh and how fun that always is. I’m going to write about my 1st impressions of Santiago and how it instinctively compares to NYC.
Santiago is one of the safest cities in South America, with little corruption and many slow news days. Parks are still not safe at night, and the city center has pickpockets and minor thieves. Most of the modern conveniences one would expect from a smaller American city exist in Santiago, though supposedly there are much poorer districts I’ve yet to see. We have Walmart-style supermarkets, mediocre Internet connections, and cheap taxis. Santiago is about as expensive as New York for most things, but food and wine are tastier due to their locality. Water and power are usually in good supply, but this year’s drought threatens both systems and has forced utilities to cut power for some distant mining operations. Almost everyone has a dog, and strays walk nonchalantly through central Santiago.
The scenery here is beautiful. We see mountains on our way to the office. Unfortunately, the weather right now is cold with a side of smog, which sometimes obscures distant mountains into vague, grey piles. Clouds over Santiago gather slowly and visibly from over the mountains, so rain is heavy, infrequent, and predictable. Snow is rare. Chileans seem to have much greater temperature tolerance than what New Yorkers are used to, even though the weather here is rarely as severe. Only modern stores and offices have what we would consider adequate heating or any form of air conditioning. Chileans enjoy barbecue in mid-winter, sitting in heavy jackets whether indoors or out. Earthquakes are common but rarely dangerous – we had one yesterday and didn’t even notice.
Our host tells us that Chileans want to appear more conservative than they really are. Condoms appeared in Supermarkets in the past few years. Catholicism is the norm here.
The two things uniting this country seem to be Pisco Sour, a drink that any self-respecting Chilean will vehemently assert originated here and not in Peru, and futbol, which Americans call soccer. Big futbol games draw enormous crowds into public streets, and Chilean drivers literally honk melodies of solidarity as pre-game traffic crawls home.
The metro here is faster, cheaper, and more frequent than the NYC subway but stops running late at night. It’s always crowded. Funnily, most of our key locations are on the 1 line, which has almost exactly the same symbol as the 1 train I took to school every day going from Harlem to Brooklyn.
(New York on the top. Santiago below.)
The StartupChile program people are especially excited right now, because Chile is very close to reclassification as a 1st world country. Santiago is less of a major tech city than an ongoing experiment in how to create one. This place feels younger and fresher than the impressions I have of America’s major tech centers. Silicon Valley may still reign as the tried-and-true place for software startups, but Santiago holds a certain glory in its adventurousness. While the US tries to recover from the excesses of decades past, Chile is going for the breakaway, taking a shot at upending the status quo.
