Part of how to square this: many people think "I don't see any listings for all these cheap apartments!" That is because they are not listed, nor are they available on the market (or they are not happily, transparently on the market, or they are very far away from core Manhattan such that your search settings never include them). This is a graph of what people *pay*, not a graph of what is potentially available. For example: New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) units have cheap rent, but you won't find those available for just anyone. Similar dynamics for rent-regulated apartments that are inherited, or otherwise don't actually surface to the market for one reason or another. If you have only ever existed in the market-rate housing world with rents of $2k+, there is a whole other housing world in NYC--and it's most of the housing world.