While suburbs certainly are financial sinkholes, there are other factors. Housing in cities like NYC is expensive in part because there is a housing crisis in NYC, because nothing is being built. And what is being built is preposterously expensive and beyond the teach of a typical New York family (not to mention cramped; you can barely fit a queen-sized bed into many of these bedrooms). Another issue is that developers have been snatching up real estate to cater to single yuppies who will accept living in a rathole-sized bedroom. An average bedroom is split in half to accommodate twice the occupants so that rent can be raised. This can make real estate hostile to anyone but such renters. And never mind pied-à-terre apartments, a controversial practice for which we can come up with pros and cons.
I'm not arguing that blocking housing doesn't also cause a housing crisis. I'm just saying, given the choice of living in Manhattan in a single family home, or a six-floor walkup, I'm taking the single family home. And if everyone in Manhattan made the same choice, Manhattan would be ridiculously more expensive. The best parallel is probably Beverly Hills, but for the entire island.
