Commentary: What you say when you stay: Why I believe in New York City
I have nothing against families or businesses that leave New York City. Personal reasons are more powerful magnetic pushes and pulls than anything else; to borrow from Tolstoy, everyone unhappy with the city is unhappy in his or her own way. With required commutes suddenly a thing of the past for many, with grim budget prospects and quality of life problems rearing their ugly heads in plenty of parts of the city, it’s harder these days to resist the eternal lure of a calm home with a patch of grass.
But I also feel the need for now to stay, because staying is, to me, not only an expression of solidarity to a place I love as much as any old friend, but a statement of faith in a few basic ideas.
When you stay in New York City, you say that human diversity is, on balance, a tremendous good and a great teacher. I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, which isn’t especially diverse by New York standards. Even still, I come into contact daily with more people of different cultures, economic means, languages, national origins, skin colors and religions than many suburbanites (I was one once) do in the course of a year. That’s not something I want points for; it humbles and grounds me and gives me perspective.
When you stay, you say that the coronavirus has delivered horrible pain and suffering on New York and other cities and changed us, but you acknowledge that though the city’s density may have made its initial outbreak worse, less-dense places have in no way been immune from the virus’ ravages. And it was the city’s sense of shared solidarity, a general willingness to change behavior for the common good, that ultimately pulled us out.
