to be fair as much as I want linguistic histories of all kinds of cities I think there are a lot of good reasons for this book in particular to be about New York -- both in terms of the specifics of how it got written (the Endangered Language Alliance is in New York! a good hub and focal point for a book about endangered languages!) and generally in terms of the fact that it is undeniably the most linguistically diverse city in the world .... like I also get annoyed about New York exceptionalism but this one I think is valid!