I'm 61. I don't believe most people would have said that about NYC when I was a kid. It's a 2000s media conceit. Instead, back then, cities were financially powerful (Wall Street) and produced almost all media. No one shot TV in Georgia, Florida, or anywhere else. No financials elsewhere either. Hollywood, NY then nothing. I don't believe NY or CA have fundamentally changed.

When one moves to NYC it is succeed or end up homeless (I exaggerat a little). It's not like Pennsylvania where you may not end up successful, but you won't end up feeling a failure if you don't.

You're not with a Black woman, and she is not with an Asian man because you're both liberal. At least I doubt it reading what you write. You're ambitious. You aren't afraid of failure. You live in a city for the same reason all ambitious people live there. You focus on what you can earn in the future, not what you pay today.

Anyway, I'd rethink your framework of "liberal" cities. They are the most conservative places in m opinion. Unlike Pennsylvania, and places like that, there are no excuses. There is no blaming someone else to the point that you throw out reason. It sucks for everyone in one way or another.

In Pennsylvania you'd be totally fine as an Asian man and Black woman. Indeed, you'd be everyone's trophy. In a city, you're just another couple of strivers.