<p>I’ve read books from the late 80s about New York City, and it’s amazing how everyone just expected it to be a hellhole for the foreseeable future. As I was born in 1991, I’ve never personally known the city to be anything more than an increasingly-popular and safe cultural and economic center. My generation sees the New York of “Taxi Driver” the same we see “Gangs of New York”: as mere history. We probably identify more strongly with the pre-war New York of “The Great Gatsby” or the immediate postwar New York of “The Catcher in the Rye”.</p>