So I was watching the John Carpenter classic.
Fascist-Corporatist U.S. (or fragment thereof) in a war with someone else (maybe China, maybe another part of the U.S. ... escape from L.A. seems to indicate the latter).
Manhattan is a prison.
They dump their worst prisoners there, and the old residents are stuck there too.
5000 Reserve Army Troops would be enough to lock us in, don't you think?
Funny how about that number are coming in this summer ...