A war of words has been raging across the Atlantic during the past several weeks touched off by a sloppy attack on London in the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times. Among a long list of perceived but poorly researched ills attributed to the UK’s capital city was the core complaint that the city has been hollowed-out by a mob of largely Russian oligarchs who have turned locals into no more than "valets" to the super rich. This is not the London I know.

For the last 20 years I have been visiting London at least quarterly and from 2001 through 2008 our family lived full-time in central London. I worked for an English company Reuters Group PLC drove (poorly it must be said) on the right-hand side of the road sent my children to quintessentially English schools and tried not to complain too often about the weather. I was not in fact a fan of the all-pervasive grey chill which seemed to pass as weather from October through March nor of the drunken soccer hooligans who were dispatched by various "service" providers to attempt home repairs but these are minor complaints. The London I know is a great place to live.

While it is true that London welcomes rich people from all over the world the currently unpopular Russian oligarchs among them it is also open to international artists musicians journalists and the proverbial "Polish plumber." In truth London has supplanted New York as the new international melting pot.

I grew up in New York City the child of European emigres who loved the City as I do and instilled in me the sense that New York was an amazing international melting pot of foreigners — stereotypes including the Irish cop the Greek coffee shop owner and the Italian fireman. However in my school there was only one or two non-Americans and truth be told we did not have the Chinese laundryman over for dinner at the house. In contrast up to half the students in my kids’ London schools were foreign-born and the professionals not just bankers whom I worked among and socialized with came from all corners of the world. Our neighbors in Kensington were Swiss American Italian Swedish Emirati and yes even English. I did not find London to be a hollowed-out ghetto in which a local underclass serve largely absentee oligarchs. I found London to be a vibrant open international city following an enlightened civic policy to be a modern melting pot. To be sure were I born middle class English and found myself priced-out of my capital city I might feel resentful of rich foreigners. However closing the city gates to foreigners is a blunt and self-defeating tool to promote affordable housing.

The NY-LON relationship need not be an "either or" choice any more than San Francisco and Los Angeles need be cast as rivals. We can live in multiple cities during our lives visit them and others frequently remain virtually linked when away and appreciate the virtues and work to improve the perceived shortcomings of several favorites. Above all the attractiveness of one town need not depend on the degrading of another. London and New York are pretty fantastic places to Iive to say nothing about Sydney Hong Kong San Francisco Los Angeles Chicago Barcelona Berlin or Paris.