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People still tell stories of how terrible the Bronx is. At the same time, somewhere, some realtor is talking up how amazing it is, so that people with money will come and buy up everything. At the same time there are the folks who live here, for whom it’s neither terrible nor amazing; it just is. All of these things are true, and that’s just within our own reality. It’s not just decisions, is what I’m trying to say. It’s… Every legend of this city, every lie, those become new worlds, too. All of them add to the mass that is New York, until finally all of it collapses under its own weight… and becomes something new. Something alive.
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N.K. Jemisin (The City We Became (Great Cities, #1))