As New Yorkers flee, the suburbs are under siege

‘Land of the Flee’, screamed the New York Post front page this week. Moving vans are lining up in Manhattan. Residents have had enough. It had been ‘another bloody weekend in Gotham’ with 21 people shot, and a rising wave of non-gun violence. At 11 a.m. on Saturday, a man leapt on top of a young woman on a subway platform in midtown and began grinding against her until a group of bystanders forced him to stop. You can watch the whole thing on video and decide never to take public transport again.

Living in New York has always felt like walking on a very narrow beam. The chasms on either side are the thrill of it. They create extremes of excitement, anxiety, achievement and despair. But many are now deciding: to hell with the city that never sleeps. For a solid eight hours of rest, uninterrupted by thoughts of the virus, nosebleed property prices, crowded subways, faltering public schools, socially grotesque private ones, and the mentally ill defecating on your doorstep, the suburbs give you a better shot.