NYC is doing great, as are quality-of-life focused cities like KC, Miami and Columbus.
Maybe calling every critic in your town names and letting QoL go to absolute crap is the real driver of movement.
Maybe calling every critic in your town names and letting QoL go to absolute crap is the real driver of movement.
The crime/urban blight angle is a red-herring; It implies that there was anytime in the last 30 years that New York/San Francisco was anywhere nearly comparable to a city like Tokyo.
Manhattan is already seeing a net influx in people moving back into the city.[1]
[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/sf-covid-recovery-nyc...
The comparison to Detroit seems apt. When the automakers scaled down, there was no "Plan B" and the city leaders were too incompetent/corrupt to actually lead.