I don't think moving to a different area is something easy to do as a person generally. (May be necessary, but still a hard and painful decision.) Maybe the person, even with all the city's faults, still have some affection towards her NYC neighborhood. She might have some friends important to her in the area that she doesn't want to be apart. Why should we assume the person would want to leave in the cold calculation of money and capital, ripping her off from what invaluable relationships she had in the area? People are not atomized rational machines hyper-optimizing for cost, they are in close relationship to the surrounding world and feel a sense of agency for being in such a relationship. And sometimes people will stay in their area even if the economic conditions aren't optimal, because they have something even more important to lose by moving away.