Of course, a lot of cities really were, to at least some degree, crime-ridden places to avoid. The reality is complicated and varies by city of course, but it's still pretty accurate as a sweeping generalization to say that a lot of cities in the 70s and 80s wouldn't have looked all that appealing to the sort of college-educated professional class who want to live in cities today.
As I was saying to someone the other day, with the exception of people in finance moving to Manhattan, very few of the people in my class in grad school went to live in a city when they graduated.
But as you also no doubt are aware, the trend reversed itself in the current century with cities being desirable again. Part of this is reduced crime. But part is that perception, which kept newly educated people away as you say, simply being lifted.
Part of the reason for this: building roads extended Robert Moses’ personal power, building subways didn’t.
If you can think of something fucked up about NYC, odds are good it finds its way back to Moses somehow.
I’m a little older than the average HN person. I remember as a kid growing up in Queens, my dad sweeping the ash from the Greenpoint Incinerator off of his car in the mornings when the wind blew the right way.
The city was filthy, polluted and overcrowded. The subways were no exception.
Well, no, he acquired power by (a) having a massive independent river of cash to spend and (b) using the state's power to insulate him from the city's power.