"That doesn’t mean entirely ignoring places like NYC, Istanbul, Seoul, or Tokyo. Some cities are so important they can’t be missed, and every city is a confederation of very different neighborhoods. NYC is as much Dyker Heights as it is Upper East Side.
That makes where you stay in a city more important than the city itself. "
That quote "doesnt mean ignoring ...nyc..." reads more like NYC is a great show, go their for entertainment and spectacle of what it is, but somehow that's not real america.
Nowhere do I talk about Real or Fake or whatever. Everyplace is as real as any other place. Its about who you want to meet. How fancy you want stuff to be. How packaged.
Well, statistically it's true. I've visited most of the US, and NYC is very different and not represenative. If you want to see how "the other 96%" lives, better visit elsewhere. The same is not true for most if not all other states: they have their unique culture and might be rich or poor and so on, but not is as different to the rest as NYC. Not even Los Angeles or Miami.