Keep in mind that many of negative comments do not reflect the majority of other forum members here.

Living in a big city such as NY requires a whole different way of thinking and preparation of those who live in smaller cities, towns and rural areas. You provided 2 good examples that show this difference, namely the car chargers and solar panels. Not everyone in NY city needs these due to living environments, space concerns etc, however they are good option for others.

I for example have both and are part of our plans for an extended power outage. Although I live in a large metro area, had something like Sandy rolled through here, our local, provincial and federal .gov does not have the vast resources available that NY city has seen. Had that same storm and power outage had occurred here, it would be some very long months, if not a more then a year before any sense of normalcy even started to show.