2. Star City in Arrow

Arrow’s Star City, formerly known as Starling City, features class differences that parallel New York City’s elite and lower classes. A good portion of the first two seasons focuses on Oliver Queen’s posh lifestyle as he gets used to being back home after being stranded on an island and presumed dead for five years. The narrative follows a common fiction choice of the misbehaving, playboy rich kid that gets into trouble, gets kicked out of multiple boarding schools and wreaks havoc on a prominent family name.

While this particular plot device certainly doesn’t resonate with all of New York City’s upper class, the parallels are still there. Staples in the Queens’ life include elaborate fundraisers, lavish homes and buildings that stand out against some of the more worn down buildings in less affluent neighborhoods, and for the younger Queens, an expensive and elite club scene.

Oliver may have taken his rich lifestyle for granted prior to his island adventures, but the Oliver Queen that returned to his city was a changed man who saw the corruption of the rich in his city and attempted to even the odds as a vigilante. One of the major themes in Arrow is bridging the gap between the affluent and less fortunate city people.

New York City has one of the largest gaps between its wealthy and poor inhabitants. “In 2013, the top one percent of the city earned 45.4 times the income of the bottom 99 percent on average,” according to the Economic Policy Insititute. There’s usually a correlation between wealthy areas and race: the Upper East Side is almost ninety percent white with Asians taking up about six percent and a measly four percent comprised of other races. It’s not hard to see why vigilante characters like the Green Arrow are so popular when characters like Roy Harper are pushed to petty theft just to survive and characters like the Queens live in mansions.