NYC has outrageous coop and HOA fees - way beyond what it cost to maintain SFH in most of US. With average HOA fee for 3bdrm condo probably north of $2k/month now (and often $3k+/month), you can presumably do a lot of very expensive maintenance. It’s working fine because there are a lot of money in NYC not because it’s economical or sustainable on average american income.

That is a ridiculous over-generalization for a city of 8 million people with over one million unique structures.

Maybe NYC fees are realistic and everywhere else fees are too low to meet the maintenance debt?