If an instrument could measure the level of New Yorkers’ complaints about their city, it would probably register a constant, four-century roar, increasing with the population. Vocal discontent is an unreliable indicator of how we actually live. Say, then, that a computer could grind through the city’s history, compiling photographs, newspapers, art, and piles of data into a quotient that measured the richness of urban life. When, precisely would that number have peaked?
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