Comment by renewiltord

Certainly it sounds like that. However whatever cultural transformation turns Man into Rat King has already occurred so you'll notice that it costs over a billion dollars per mile of subway in NYC. Everyone who hasn't figured out how to leech off the government is a fattened milk cow whose production is harvested industrially.

New Yorkers are already incapable of non-extractive development. Like the GP they have been transformed into zero-sum zombies by their city. A cautionary tale of culture.