Comment by dogma1138

At some point you need to realize that the middle class is also geographically gated. There's a reason why the classical middle class picture is a nuclear family in the burbs and not on 5th avenue. The American middle class was never "rich" it was very financially prudent. If you still willing to live in the burbs 250K in NYC will get you a very nice house, a car and even college tuition for your kids. Even in the golden age of the American middle class there were plenty of areas that were out of their reach, thats why the middle class expanded into new sub-urban developments. The cities were mostly polarized as they housed both the very rich and the very poor.