Agree. If the shtf, ferals won’t dare enter the smaller towns that ring the big cities.
I think it depends some on how big the city.
There are some smaller cities here in CNY that have a black population in them but surrounding them is farm country pretty quickly and LOTS of hunters and gun ownership.
Another factor in some places, Syracuse comes to mind, is the reservation south of the city, right on the border. It’s fairly close to the south side and I can’t imagine that the natives would warmly welcome feral blacks, much less anyone else into their nation.
And there are many reservations here in Upstate NY but I think that the Onondaga one is the closest to a city of any significant size.
And should the SHTF scenario happen during the winter, many who try to abandon the cities will die of exposure. When I see how so many people these days dress so causally in the dead of winter, not realizing that exposure can take them in short order, there are going to be many besides the feral population who just don’t make it for that reason alone.