When I lived in NYC (about as far north in the Bronx as you can get without falling into Yonkers), even those so called conservatives there had a very limited view of freedom. Take the topic of guns. There wasn't anyone I knew who thought simply being able to carry without a license was a good idea, and I didn't associate socially with liberals. I had many friendly arguments with my lunch buddies who hated the wealth transfer and welfare parasite culture, but who repeatedly told me that they would not have a gun in their house. A significant fraction of them thought that cars were an unnecessary luxury and that people should use public transport.
And finally an extreme case. One of the lab techs where I worked, a man in his 50's whom I thought old at the time (my how our viewpoints change), was mugged waiting for public transport. The mugging occurred in view of a NYC detective who arrested the criminal. The detective asked the victim if he would testify in court and of course the guy said yes. after showing up in court four times only to have discovered that the case was postponed (without anyone notifying him) He showed up and testified. The criminal (even then one of Holder's people) was found guilty and released with a year's probation tacked on to the probation he was already serving for another crime. Long winded story, but after the final act I asked the tech if he would have rather been carrying a gun and he still said no that the guy would have taken it away from him and used it on him. I ask how that was supposed to work, but I forget how the conversation went after that - long time ago Lindsey was mayor.
My point being that
I’m not sure being afraid to use a gun is really a liberal attitude. People who grew up in a city in the north rarely had any occasion to be around guns in a positive setting, such as hunting or even plain old target practice, and it may actually have been prudent of this guy not to have a gun because I doubt that he would ever have dared to use it and the thug probably would have taken it away from him.
As for public transit, it’s good in NYC and having a car is very expensive and more trouble than it’s worth (alternate side of the street parking, heavy traffic that makes the subway a faster alternative, etc.).
So I’m not sure these are “liberal” attitudes, but just simply reflections of where the people grew up and what they’re used to. Most of them would move to similar places in other states (that is, a city with good public transportation) and probably wouldn’t be out in the country or even the remoter suburbs, so I don’t think they’d have much of an impact on small town or rural people.
In any case, with your Bronx friends, we’re talking about the middle class. On the other hand, the mega-rich who are moving out are going to continue to live as they did in New York, that is, with expensive cars, often with drivers, expensive properties, and probably even recreation such as hunting, fishing or riding, or less athletic things such as collecting cars, paintings (or even guns!). Not to mention wives...