1. There is only one reason to live in NYC: professional opportunitites (particularly in financial services, but to a lesser extent also in professional services). Obviously those who choose to remain in the city do so for this reason.

2. As far as the "wealth transfer", Im not just talking about direct subsidies, but Im also including indirect wealth transferring subsidies such as public education, low income/elderly subsidies, public medicine, etc. Obviously, an urban city like NY needs a certain amount of spending for "public goods" like police, fire, sanitation, transportation, and parks--and this drives a certain amount of the tax. However, there really isn't a reason to have this deep support structure for poor/elderly etc. Those people should be in low cost states. To the extent that they continue to live in NYC, they are economic parasites--net consumers of far more in public services than they contribute in tax revenues. NYC is "progressive taxation" taken to insane heights--anti-property owner, anti-business, anti-taxpayer. If NYC were to reduce its subsidies, those who rely on it would leave and go elsewhere, into (hopefully) economies where their economic contributions would be closer to their actual consumption. Sounds heartless, but Im a big believer in private communities and privatized everything--obviously a self-serving position, but that's Adam Smith at work for ya.