Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) one who lives in a skyscraper apartment block, esp. in New York City; thus cliff-dwelling adj.

1911		G. Bronson-Howard Enemy to Society 329: Don’t let me hear you talking like that again, you black-muzzled, cliff-dwelling kike!
1917		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 9 May [synd. col.] This [i.e. greedy, talkative lift boys] is one pest that is the bane of every cliff dweller in New York.
1921		O.O. McIntyre Bits of New York Life 25 Feb. [synd. col.] The man who invents some haven for abandoned razor blades for Manhattan cliff dwellers will be performing a service that should result in grateful citizens.
1952		L. Lariar Day I Died 205: I’ve always been a city man, a cliff-dweller type.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1980		J. McClure Spike Island (1981) 20: All those cliff-dwellers in the high-rise flats.
1993		(con. 1890s) I.L. Allen City in Sl. (1995) 118: By about 1890 the growing number of residents were sardonically called cliff dwellers.