It's also just wrong. You can get a nice 1 bedroom in a nice neighborhood in Manhattan near the subway for ~$3000/month. You can go significantly lower than that in Bushwick, Astoria, Washington Heights, etc.

Not sure where the $3800 figure came from, but it's easy to be mislead by what you see on Streeteasy, Zillow, etc. The most overpriced units stay on the market for a long time, because they're a bad deal, so you'll see lots of them if you check at any point in time. Underpriced units get rented quickly, so you'll see less of them.