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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNew book I'm reading: "Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics."
By Kim Phillips-Fein.
When the news broke in 1975 that New York City was on the brink of fiscal collapse, few believed it was possible. How could the countrys largest metropolis fail? How could the capital of the financial world go bankrupt? Yet the city was indeed billions of dollars in the red, with no way to pay back its debts. Bankers and politicians alike seized upon the situation as evidence that social liberalism, which New York famously exemplified, was unworkable. The city had to slash services, freeze wages, and fire thousands of workers, they insisted, or financial apocalypse would ensue.
In this vivid account, historian Kim Phillips-Fein tells the remarkable story of the crisis that engulfed the city. With unions and ordinary citizens refusing to accept retrenchment, the budget crunch became a struggle over the soul of New York, pitting fundamentally opposing visions of the city against each other. Drawing on never-before-used archival sources and interviews with key players in the crisis, Fear City shows how the brush with bankruptcy permanently transformed New York―and reshaped ideas about government across America.
At once a sweeping history of some of the most tumultuous times in New York's past, a gripping narrative of last-minute machinations and backroom deals, and an origin story of the politics of austerity, Fear City is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the resurgent fiscal conservatism of today.
In this vivid account, historian Kim Phillips-Fein tells the remarkable story of the crisis that engulfed the city. With unions and ordinary citizens refusing to accept retrenchment, the budget crunch became a struggle over the soul of New York, pitting fundamentally opposing visions of the city against each other. Drawing on never-before-used archival sources and interviews with key players in the crisis, Fear City shows how the brush with bankruptcy permanently transformed New York―and reshaped ideas about government across America.
At once a sweeping history of some of the most tumultuous times in New York's past, a gripping narrative of last-minute machinations and backroom deals, and an origin story of the politics of austerity, Fear City is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the resurgent fiscal conservatism of today.
https://www.amazon.com/Fear-City-Fiscal-Austerity-Politics/dp/080509525X#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1507742000673
File this in the "must-reads for how we got here" folder!
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New book I'm reading: "Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics." (Original Post)
YoungDemCA
Oct 2017
OP
The documentary "HyperNormalisation" also touches on this if I recall correctly. nt
Guy Whitey Corngood
Oct 2017
#2
choie
(4,111 posts)1. I read this as well
and it was quite interesting! As a New Yorker it illuminated how NY evolved into who's it is now - a city for the rich..
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,505 posts)2. The documentary "HyperNormalisation" also touches on this if I recall correctly. nt