Crónicas: On my city as a fictional place

Last year, a New Yorker told me that every time he flies into LA, he feels like he's arriving in Gotham City. I laughed because that's what I think when I land in New York – and isn't that the city that Gotham is based on?

New York has the look, he replied, but Los Angeles has Gotham's soul. The face of the City of Angels could launch a thousand ships but under the skin, she's wasting away, fueled by an infectious hunger for things that don't sate: the envy of others, perhaps, and perpetual youth.

He could never, the New Yorker said, live in Los Angeles.