"Like every great metropolis, New York is too vast for anyone to claim it all as home. We define our perimeters in concentric circles, we patrol our turf, decide that this dry cleaner is ours and that one is not, follow the same immemorial cow path through the city’s endless array of routes because it means passing better shops or getting a glimpse of some especially whimsical gargoyle. Neighborhoods are like geologic formations, carved out by a million insignificant decisions, a million vague sensations that I’m comfortable here. They are constantly in flux, shaped by currents of migration, prosperity, and decline, by a developer’s ambition, and by the random flutterings of fashion. That’s true now, as areas that were once grim and bedraggled get refurbished. It was true a century ago, when the subway bound the farthest reaches of Brooklyn to Manhattan’s breast. And it was true when the city was hardly more than a rustic Dutch hamlet."