“... recent immigrants, they will tell you what hell it is to live in New York in their condition..” as opposed to WHAT? Port au Prince? Santo Domingo?
NYC has welcomed immigrants forever, most of whom lived in what we would consider horrible conditions, my ancestors among them. Still it beat all hell out of the homeland .. previous immigrants understood that .. that the US/NYC represented the opportunity for them to provide better lives for their children, and their children’s children.
The streets were not paved with gold for any of them. It’s their children and their children’s children who now live in the large houses on the large lots in suburbia.
My point is that apartment and rowhouse living is not their ultimate goal. They think places like Staten Island or Clifton, NJ are better than Queens or Brooklyn because they can have a bigger place and a yard. Glamourous Manhattan living is something they just can’t fathom.