In fact, speaking generally, any major metropolitan area can, with sufficient strength of will and character, and a good source of filtered water, produce a "single decent slice of pizza." (Or, speaking more accurately, a single decent pizzeria.)

Similarly, pointing to single restaurants and pizzerias is not an adequate rebuttal to charges of poor overall pizza production. The ability to support a single decent pizzeria should be regarded not as a point of pride but, if anything, as the bare minimum for qualification as an American city.

The question of regional pizza quality rests therefore not on single examples, which are often exceptions to the rule, but on the chance that a randomly-chosen pizzeria will produce an adequate-to-good slice of pizza.