Description
"A political history of New York City from the late 1960s to the pandemic of 2020, City of Fortune traces the transformation of the city from a manufacturing economy of largely white union workers through the fiscal crisis and austerity of the 1970s to an investment-driven economy that built the city of inequality we have today. The focus throughout is on three key elements of city life: housing, the schools, and policing. In an elegant narrative built on deep research, Mason Williams draws together the key political players in Albany, City Hall, and the boroughs and neighborhoods to chart visceral battles over policing issues like Broken Windows and Stop and Frisk; issues of school quality and choice driven by the spread of charter schools, magnet schools, and middle-school gifted and talented programs, and the corrosive problems of housing scarcity, affordability, and homelessness. Race is a fault line in all of these divisions. City of Fortune is a New York history but not just a New York story. The political economy it describes is operative in cities across the country, creating winners and losers in key battles over policy and resources"-- Provided by publisher.
