What you write is sobering, but not altogether without hope. I live in Austin, and the diaspora of New Yorkers is not without its good.

In fact, the trend toward de-urbanization in these AB times is likely to be part of a possible rebirth and solution, not just for New York City, but for the entire country and beyond.

If you're looking for something potentially hopeful to salve your grief, I'd highly recommend the book Climate: A New Story by Charles Eisenstein. For a shorter read, I wrote this piece on the topic.

https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/holistic-management-and-planned-grazing-3a39d1cc2cfa

Imagine. What if the cities dissolve for a while, for decades even, and we rebalance the populace across physical land space, while simultaneously distributing the creativity and verve of the big cities, what might happen.

1. Fix climate change with regenerative practices and a re-localization of material goods and services.

2. Maintain the global flow of knowledge and communication via the great bandwidth river.

3. Re-establish a different reality for humans and how they relate to earth.

Then 50, or even 100 years in the future, we can revisit and reclaim some of the cities. What a fantastical adventure. Sounds like a movie.

Thank you for a truly thoughtful read. I grieve with you at the loss of what the City once was. It's not to be taken lightly.