I just don't get it. To live in a "bad" neighborhood in Manhattan a small 2/br runs over $2000/month. How can any neighborhood full of people able to pay 2k/month be considered an unsafe/shady neighborhood?

In SoHo, the same small 2/br unit will cost over $7k a month. How do so many people have this kind of money to fill street after street after street of apartments?

Furthermore, everyone I talk to in Manhattan says the schools aren't good and that almost everyone tries to send their kids to private schools [[cheaper being parochial and then the more expensive ritzy ones). I understand that in the SoHos of the world money may be no object so every kid goes to private school but what about in the 2k/month neighborhoods? You would think those people would all have to be professionals to afford to live like that and the local public schools would be good.

Can someone explain how this works?