NYC's newest residents are doubling down

Why, at this point, would anyone want to go to New York? Maybe it's like my experience in Paris in 2018: when I got off the train at Montparnasse Station and walked over to the Eiffel Tower, the Paris I encountered was fairly quiet, and I even recall noticing that there was far less dogshit on the streets than in years past—what used to be a common tourist complaint about Paris. After all the nightmare videos I'd seen on YouTube about the aggressive migrants hectoring timid tourists, my own experience was almost a disappointment. (Not that I'd been hoping to get accosted, mind you.) So maybe New York City is like that: there are some really shitty areas, but there are still enough "clean" areas to give a tourist the impression that, just maybe, things aren't that bad. Tim Pool had remarked on a similar phenomenon (albeit for different reasons) when he was in Egypt during the Arab Spring: he was at a restaurant in Cairo, and in his district, all was quiet. Meanwhile, several blocks over in Tahrir Square, all of the riots and demonstrations were happening—the stuff we all saw in the news. Was Cairo really burning down? No, it wasn't. But at the same time—was all of that violence real? Yes, it was. So I guess the question to ask is How much nonsense am I personally willing to tolerate? If you're heading to a shithole city, it's a good, practical question to ask. You are, after all, taking your life into your own hands, and your safety is a roll of the dice.