City of Fortune: Inequality and the Making of Contemporary New York

In City of Fortune: Inequality and the Making of Contemporary New York, Mason B. Williams recounts the history of New York since the 1970s, focusing on housing, schooling, and policing. With finance and real estate driving the city’s economic growth after the decline of manufacturing, each area became more exclusive. Affordable housing grew scarce, with the homelessness surging and working New Yorkers paying rents well above the standard of affordability. Underfunded public schools were crowded out by charter schools and academies, magnet schools, and gifted-and-talented programs. Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s strategy of attacking crime by cracking down on minor offenses escalated into Michael Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk policy, which targeted young Blacks and Latinos but yielded few arrests. The deepening inequality was heavily racialized, one of many connections between New York and other cities across the United States. But the city’s progressive traditions continue to thrive in a widespread culture of civic engagement, ranging from mayors, governors, and headline public figures to behind-the-scenes reformers and everyday New Yorkers. Kara Schlichting, author of New York Recentered: Building the Metropolis from the Shore, joins in conversation.