RF Soup, yes, but Ham radio works very well.

There is some intermod, particularly on UHF, but we have repeaters that cover MOST of the city (there are some holes covered by other boxes - NYC is a big place). Good radios with a fairly good, tight receiver are fine. Hint - rigs with dc-daylight receive do worse with intermod than rigs that ONLY receive "in band"

Disclaimer - I'm the Queens County ARES EC - NYC District ARES