> I think the long-term goal is to make midtown less shitty by having it become more residential, somewhat similar to the financial district.

The goal is really to build houses where there is capacity to do so. 25 year olds don't have a problem catching a cab or taking the bus/subway to go wherever they want to go. I'm sure many of them would jump on the opportunity to live somewhere with more space or lower rents and still be close to all of Manhattan's amenities. When i was 25 years old the distance of places wasn't really much of an obstacle to me.