I see New York City is now a banana republic: "The top fifth of earners in Manhattan now make 52 times what the lowest fifth make - $365,826 compared with $7,047 - which is roughly comparable to the income disparity in Namibia, according to the Times analysis of 2000 census data." That's what you get when you put East Harlem and East Midtown in one municipality. One could also note that the middle class in Manhattan seems to be increasingly shrinking; I would guess this is because New York survived the flight of manufacturing and shipping jobs primarily by expanding its financial sector (which is the most dominant in the country, thanks to the first-mover advantages that came with having the region's most important port in the 19th century).