I spent many years around and inside New York City. It was the beating heart of not just the state, region, or country, but the entire global financial system. New York City is home to 8 million people but its wider tri-state urban sprawl totals 20 million. New York City was a monolith. That’s why when you said “the city” you didn’t have to specify which one. People knew. If you aspired for more, you went to the city.
The promise of advancement in your career was enough to put up with many material and cultural toxins. Yet in a combination of those toxins increasing, the economic opportunity decreasing, and new rival cities burgeoning, the city’s promise faded. An August 2020 New York Post op-ed declared “New York City is dead forever.” The National Association of Realtors reported that the state of New York had the second-highest outward migration total—32 times the median state’s outward migration.
Read Full Article »