Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics

Written by Kim Phillips-Fein

Narrated by Pam Ward

An epic, riveting history of New York City on the edge of disaster-and an anatomy of the austerity politics that continue to shape the world today

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 country's 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Apr 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781541473461

Reviews for Fear City

[foof2you · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this book extremely interesting on subject that I knew little about. The bankruptcy of New York City was a story I remember in the mid 70's and remember people talking about this. This story is well told and interesting to see how the city got into the mess they did and that no one went to jail, is amazing.

[lindapanzo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Many readers, including this particular reader, would not think of a book on business history to be a page turner. This book, focusing on the fiscal crisis facing New York City in the 1970s, is certainly that.It's very informative and it discusses complex matters in easy to understand language.I'd certainly recommend this book. In fact, I think I'll track down some of her other books. They're bound to be interesting.

[lizdugan · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It is a good read for those who are math minded and history buff. I am neither. Still, very well written.

[jacobdecker · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A detailed and in depth look into the financial crisis of the early to mid 1970s in New York. Perfectly highlights the problems while leaving you the ability to draw your own conclusions.

[bemislibrary · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This well researched book looks at the financial crisis in New York City. Phillips-Fein organized the material according to the origins of the crisis, the crisis itself, and its legacies. He exposes the flaws created by the public sector and the inability of the citizen to change policies that affect their daily lives. She does not presume to have all the answers, but she did a fine job defining and highlighting the problems. Philips-Fein is a historian and teaches at the Gallatin School of Individualized Studies at New York University.I was randomly chosen through a Goodreads Giveaway to receive this book free from the publisher. Although encouraged, I was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

[rachie615 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An interesting and finely researched account of what led to the fiscal crisis during the 1970s in New York and what happened afterwards. The author writes in an accessible and unbiased way. Presenting the facts and the figures in that time in a way that draws you into the events. I enjoyed learning about this period of time in New York.

[archidose-991096 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not long before seeing “Fear City” on LT’s Early Reviewers list, I had watched Adam Curtis’s 2016 film “Hypernormalisation,” which starts with two local but globally significant moments in 1975, one in Damascus and one in New York City. The latter was in deep debt and on the brink of collapse, and the film presents footage of the city issuing bonds in return for loans – a meeting where no banks showed up. Curtis saw this as the moment when financial institutions took power away from politicians and started to run society themselves. The film veers from there to analyze the effects of this “experiment” in the ensuing decades, but it had me wondering about the details of NYC’s fiscal crisis.Kim Phillips-Fein’s “Fear City” details “New York’s fiscal crisis and the rise of austerity politics” (the book’s subtitle) so thoroughly that often I found my eyes glazing over, lost in the economic and political minutia. Even though the material throughout was not ideally suited to this reader, I applaud Phillips-Fein for dismantling some myths (in regards to the causes of the crisis as well as how the city navigated it and rose out of it) and painting as thorough and clear a picture as is possible all these decades later. It is an important history at an appropriate time, as conservative politicians and the corporations they appear to represent more than the public push toward even greater austerity in the wider American government.Both Curtis and Phillips-Fein correctly assert that we – in NYC and elsewhere  – are dealing with the effects of the mid-1970s crisis: income inequality and reduced government spending in social services, to name but two areas. Yet New York remains an island of sorts in the United States, with its relatively strong public sector and social welfare. Paradoxically, the city is home to some of the richest people in the world and is a place for billionaires from around the world to park their money via real estate. As such, the city is a living, breathing symbol of the struggles that started, in part, 42 years ago.

[laurenhc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Growing up in the NYC area, I have long been aware of the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, but never knew many details about it. Fear City gives a good education on the topic. It is well written, readable, and much less dry than you would expect of a 400-page book about fiscal policy. Phillips-Fein packs in a lot of information while making the story interesting and at times even suspenseful. She goes into great detail on both the political machinations at the city, state, and federal levels, as various factions tried to keep the city afloat and debated how it should solve its problems; and also covers how the austerity measures affected the city's people and communities and how some of them tried to fight back.My main criticism relates to the author's biases. She pretty clearly is critical of the bankers and conservatives who insisted that the city cut back on services in order to be able to pay its debts, and it's not that I disagree with that opinion per se, but she sometimes indulged in sarcastic/snarky criticisms of conservative opinions, which I found tiresome. And there were times when I wished she would present her ideas of what other path the city could have possibly taken through the crisis, rather than just criticizing the decisions that beleaguered public servants made in an extremely difficult and unprecedented situation.That said, Fear City is definitely a worthwhile read for anyone interested in New York history and urban fiscal policy.

[jec27 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very detailed and interesting presentation of the facts, figures and people behind and/or involved in the days of New York City's financial crises in the late 60s and 70s. A Midwesterner and a teenager at the beginning of troubles for New York, I have vague recollections of stories in the news about garbage piling up because of reduced services, but troubles in a faraway and psychologically remote place did not concern me then. It is good to have the historical background from an almost-but-not-quite unbiased perspective. Evidence of Ms. Phillips-Fein's liberal political views first caught my attention by her remarks about Arthur Laffer's "erroneous notion" about low taxes and higher government revenues. Even John F. Kennedy disagreed, and proved it by his economic policies. She referred to liberals 'sad resignation' about limited resources compared to the 'punitive savagery' of conservatives. She refers to Donald Trump's restoration of the Commodore Hotel as an 'exploitation,' and to 'insurgent conservative movements' to eliminate Social Security, minimum wage and unions. She makes some reasonable points about the costs to the poor and uneducated under austerity programs that brought New York's books back into balance. At the same time, her longing for the days of government (i.e., taxpayers) provision of all material things makes me wonder in what style and price-range home she lives in and what she does personally to help the tired, poor and hungry. The fact that she adopts the class and racial dividing terms and concepts of her political party do not make void the value of the information in the book. In fact, in some ways it helps me to clarify my own thinking.

[hippypaul_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Between the late 1800’s and 1945 New York became an economic powerhouse. Despite several corrupt administrations and the depression of the 1930’s the city continued its growth. The Port of New York was a hub of shipping. Public transportation within the city grew to be efficient and cheap. The value of education became apparent and led to a massive growth in public schools and libraries.New York became the financial center of the US and much of the world. Scores of manufacturers operated within the city shipping out over the city's many docks or using its rail hub. World War II created unprecedented opportunities for labor. Under progressive administrations, the city provided a massive amount of public services. New York had twenty-four hospitals supported by neighborhood clinics with all supervised by a major health department. The growth continues after the war, but problems begin to affect the city. The cities manufacturing base had always been made up of small concerns more and more they started to grow and to move out seeking cheaper land and a non-unionized workforce. More companies wanted to have a New York headquarters so high rise office buildings started going up often at the expense of housing units. The movement of firms and people out of the city had a significant adverse effect on the city’s tax collection, while the increasing number of New Yorkers out of work put more strain on city expenses. Kim Phillips – Fein’s excellent book outlines this problem and the resulting financial crises. She traces the roots of the problem and carefully and comprehensively recounts the actions of the city government as it faced default. She also shows how this issue and the efforts to solve it previewed the rise of the austerity politics that affects every level of government today from local up to the national. The volume is a careful account of a financial event. The author conveys this in a readable, enjoyable style. I enjoyed the book and would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone. I received an advanced reader’s copy of this book.

[bbrad_4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The book's first sentence: "On October 30,1975, the New York Daily News printed the most famous headline in its history: FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD."Indeed, one of the themes of the book is the interplay of the Federal government and the city/state governments in the management of New York City's debt crisis in the 1970s. That crisis came about, the book lucidly demonstrates, by generous city spending on social services and city workers at a time when the city's revenue base was shrinking. Politicians and city employee unions agreed on only one solution to the gap between revenue and spending - borrow. The bills finally came due in 1975. The market stopped buying New York City bonds.The author, a history professor living in New York City, writes extremely well, and what could have been a dry, number crunching story is, instead, a great human drama. For the most part she sets out the well-sourced facts chronologically and without bias. She does, however, at the end of the narrative, offer her views about the price that was paid for the debt 'fix'."[New York City's debt crisis] . . . marked the beginning of a new age. A corporate and financial elite, along with technocratic politicians responsive to that group, gained control over New York. They could be counted on to prioritize the interests of business and the wealthy; indeed, they often regarded that as the only way to help the city. This new perspective closed off an older vision of New York, shutting down debate over whether city government should seek to guarantee a set of social rights for all. New York City still has not transcended this constriction of its politics. Neither has the nation as a whole."The fix was the creation, in 1976, of the Municipal Assistance Corporation (MAC). That was a state agency that sold bonds and used the proceeds to pay the city's debts and at the same time to force the city drastically to reduce spending on, for example, subsidized subway fares, multiple fire houses and companies, free tuition at City College, a massive police force, health clinics and outdated city hospitals, and excessive numbers of city employees (in 1970 eleven out of every 100 people employed in New York City worked for the municipal government).The changes forced by MAC took decision making out of the hands of old-time ward healing pols, and from well intentioned, but free spending, liberal politicians like John Lindsay and Abe Beame, and gave it to businessmen and technocrats. Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg reflected the new ethos.The book makes city governance as interesting and page turning as Robert Caro did in THE POWER BROKER (1975).

[gatorhater · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An in-depth look at the strain the public resources that arose at the end of WWII, which placed an unsustainable weigh on the New York City budget. The budget started to unravel at the beginning of the 70's, when the unemployment rate started rising, but the city budget kept increasing trifold. The solution by Mayor Wagner was to borrow now and repay later, which was the start to the end of an economical collapse of the city finances. With no means too repay these loans the city was in deep trouble, what can they do to fix this problem.