I love New York City. It’s one of my favorite places on the planet. Which, by the way, means I’m the perfect description of the research THESE GUYS have been doing about white affluent culture in America.

The New York Times has a piece today about NY being the least fulfilling place to live in the U.S. (yes, even beating out D.C. for top, or should I say, low honors).

More important, might contentment be overrated? Seriously, isn’t restlessness, even outright discontent, often a catalyst for creativity?

We’re from the Harry Lime school. If you’ve seen the film classic “The Third Man,” you will remember that character’s admonition: “In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.

“In Switzerland they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”