There is simply no reason to be in New York anymore. With the internet, you can locate your firm anywhere. Why would you choose high tax, high cost of living, high crime New York?
I work for several big banks in Charlotte. I have a lot of colleagues up in New York who are DYING to get transferred down here. The banks generally make them take a 20% haircut in their salary when they get transferred. Their standard of living still goes way up even with their salary reduced by that much. That’s to say nothing of the filth and crime up in NYC.
“With the internet, you can locate your firm anywhere.”
Not quite anywhere. A dozen years ago, I worked for a small company that built hardware and software for stock trading companies (e.g., Goldman Sachs). Our claim to fame was low-latency streaming of stock quotes while guaranteeing preserving their order. The distances involved were relatively short, such as the NYSE floor to New Jersey.
Getting the quotes and sending the bids a few milliseconds sooner than competitors could make a real difference in profits. It was like on-line action games, but for lots of money.
Of course Internet speeds have much improved since then, but so have computer (and thus decision) speeds, so distance still matters somewhat.