By Caroline Salas

Martin Fridson said suburban friends used to chide him for raising two children in Manhattan.

“Central Park had a national reputation as being a very dangerous place,” said Fridson, 58, global credit strategist at BNP Paribas Asset Management Inc. Raised in Detroit, he has lived on the Upper West Side, near the expansive park, since 1980 and said that outsiders don’t always see the benefits city dwellers appreciate.

“People sort of wondered how you could possibly raise children in New York,” he said of the city that in the last decade has persevered through a historic terrorist attack and a severe financial crisis.

“Their perceptions are out of date,” Fridson said, describing a “tremendous renaissance” on Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues near his three-bedroom apartment.

Manhattan’s population grew 3.2 percent to 1,585,873, outpacing New York state’s 2.1 percent growth over the past decade, according to 2010 Census data released yesterday. The boost defied fears of urban flight after the Sept. 11 attacks and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

New York City, the most populous place in the country with 8,175,133 residents, also attracted more residents at the same time that its crime rate fell, census and city data show.

Felonies Decline

The incidence of seven major felony offenses declined to 105,115 in 2010, down 43 percent from 184,652 in 2000, according to the New York City Police Department. That includes reports of murder, rape, robbery and burglary.

“The city itself has turned around the perception that it’s just a nasty, dirty place to live,” said Peter Francese, a demographics analyst who founded American Demographics magazine, now part of Advertising Age. New York has “created the perception that it’s not only safe, it’s hot,” he said.

The median co-op and condo sale price increased to $880,000 in 2010, more than double the 2001 figure of $430,000, according to a report this year by real estate appraiser Miller Samuel Inc., which covers the greater New York metropolitan area. The report was based on sales by Prudential Douglas Elliman, a real estate firm with more than 60 offices.

‘Influx of Demand’

“I’m not so sure we would have had the influx of demand for people to make this their home” if former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and current Mayor Michael Bloomberg hadn’t focused on “the small stuff, like graffiti on the subways, trash and quality of life issues,” said Jonathan Miller, president of New York-based Miller Samuel.


Continued at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...into-city.html