The old NYC infrastructure and all of the physical work (and permits, contracts, everything else) means a huge overhaul would most likely not be worth doing in dense and already wired places like these.
Also rayiner pointed out in another thread that according to Akamai the US already is pretty high up in the list of overall bandwidth. Also I think the HN / Reddit / tech echo chamber overplays the demand for gigabit internet. Most of America has no need for this, nor the willingness to pay for a connection this fast. 10-25 Mb is fine for most people. Browse Facebook, surf the web, stream a couple of movies, play games.
As for the remainder--well of course they're not making use of a service that they have no way to buy in the first place...and your insinuations remind me of the people in the early 19th century who howled that the first locomotives' 10 mph crusing speed was far faster than any sane person would ever want to travel.
And I haven't noticed the U.S. public rallying in horrified opposition to faster internet speeds in a big way. Or at all, really.
This is a common misconception. When it comes to actually using technology, the Japanese are at least a decade behind the West, thanks to their aging, collectivist, and risk-averse society. Fax machines continue to be widely used[0].
The primary difference is that in Japan, the government nationalized the last mile, resulting in a ton of competition. You can pick between a dozen ISPs in Tokyo.
0: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/world/asia/in-japan-the-fa...
Of course, I'm with Cablevision - when most of the city is limited to TWC.