I agree wholeheartedly. Thanks for having the courage to state this.
I think the reasons are straightforward: 1: The supply chain has evolved. Affordable ingredients are mass produced and low quality and a pizza place needs a strong motive to choose better ingredients. 2: family pride has not passed to current generations. And as you say most of those families have migrated out to the suburbs.
To be fair, I still think the bar is much lower outside the NY area. So visitors may legitimately love places we cringe at. And more power to them, frankly.
I think the decline extends to the suburbs too. Would love to get some of your New Jersey recs.
This is not a joke. I strongly disagree with advising people to try random NYC pizza places. My theory is a lot of the good pizza makers moved out of the city to the suburbs or lower cost cities.