Yes, I've looked at all the pictures in the author's story. And it never occurred to me to assume those are pictures of a ghetto the author lives in, as implied by the words "the real solution to the author's angst is to go study the field more broadly and get out of whatever ghetto they are living in" (emphasis mine).

But after I read your comment, I went back to the story and did a Google image search for a few (but not all) of those pictures. And guess what? They all come from other sources.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's not like I was looking for hostility. I was reading the comment and nodding along and then the hostility came out of nowhere and smacked me in the face.

Obviously OP was speaking of a figurative coding ghetto, not their literal physical surroundings.