When I told him my modest but not embarrassing Midwestern salary, he threw up his hands. Unlike Tom Wolfe, he did not exaggerate. Take crime, for example. For reasons I do not fully understand, the city is commonly perceived as a place where citizens live in constant fear for their lives and property. But it's simply not true.
American cities are all, to some extent, unsafe places.
But New York is not prominent among them. Its crime rates rank well down in comparative terms. More than that, the rates are dropping. That same night on the local news I learned that official crime rates were lower than they had been in two decades. That's all been remarked on so often that the temptation to take it for granted is overwhelming, but the temptation ought to be resisted.