One of the things I love about New York city is that you can get on a bus in the afternoon rush hour, and sit down with a banker making $5m/yr on one side and a Starbucks barista on the other.
And can anyone really argue that private cars add to quality of life in Manhattan? It should be limited to licensed taxi cabs (preferably electric/hybrid), emergency vehicles, commercial (delivery, maintenance, etc), and that's about it. Why should an individual be allowed to bring his Hummer into that tiny island full of pedestrians? Close more roads to vehicles and give them back to pedestrians and cyclists. If it's hard to ban, just jack up the bridge and tunnel tolls to $50/car.
I don't really disagree. Many communities in the U.S. are very pedestrian hostile (and that's perfectly fine if that's what they want)--I don't see why a city where most people don't own cars needs to avoid being car hostile.
There was an interesting story on NPR Planet Money that indicates that private cars are actually not the issue in Manhattan, and adding more taxi cabs will actually slow traffic down. The context is that NYC is looking at adding 2,000 cab licenses to the 13,000 licenses it already has.
The summary is that the commutes are brutal, but the private cars get to work and get parked, off the road, and they're not a big deal. But cabs are on the road and take up space all the time. The 2,000 additional cabs will cause traffic to move 12% slower, including deliveries, buses, and commutes.
People commuting in/out of the city is not as bad as just getting around the city.
I'm still surprised that NYC's business-savvy mayor hasn't introduced congestion pricing yet. It's successful everywhere it's been tried so far, but people are very resistant to it.
I was probably not adding to the quality of life, but I used to really enjoy driving around downtown Manhattan at night. FWIW, there were few signs of life down there after 10pm.
For car nuts living in the city, it's a bit of a thing you do.
I live in Boston, and I'm fairly certain that the local Porsche dealership is catering to potential customers with very early morning test drives on Storrow Drive with demo cars. During the summer months I almost lose count of the number of 911s I encounter at 2AM (with a driver and a passenger, almost always both male) with window stickers on them, carving through the elevation changes and off-camber corners well beyond the speed limit. Last year it was so frequent I just got over to the rightmost lane whenever I would hear a wailing flat-six approaching.