Why New York is New York

Many of our great cities are known for one or two things. Detroit certainly for the auto industry, San Francisco for the 60s and Tech. Houston for the oil industry, and Los Angeles for Hollywood. New York in so many ways transcends that. Sure it’s the home of Wall Street and the capital of finance, but without putting down any other cities, New York stands alone as a pantheon to the very ideas of cities themselves and all that they represent.

The great chronicler of cites Jane Jacobs said “that by its nature, the metropolis provides what otherwise could be given only by traveling; namely, the strange.”

Very few cities, other than New York offer that strangeness.The ability to round the corner and be surprised,

Craig Taylor get to the heart of this in New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time 

My conversation with Craig Taylor.

How N.Y.'s Fiscal Crises of the '70s Has Shaped So Much Of Our Politics Today

Many of you may remember that back in the mid 70’s, the City of New York had fallen into a kind dystopian horror...crime and graffiti were rampant, social services and infrastructure were decayed and expectations of public services had come to be taken for granted.  It was more reminiscent of Batman’s Gotham than the shining city it is today.

Even as Gerald Ford told New York to “drop dead,” in October of 1975, the seeds were being planted for New York's gentrification. As Disney rose like the phoenix from Times Square, it was the early symbol that would ultimately and symbolically show the triumph of private enterprise shaping public good and public spaces.

In so doing, it set the stage for what would become the next forty years of American urban policy. The economic policies of the Reagan administration would come just a few years after New York's nadir, and would personify this new approach.  One that is still driving public policy today, and which in many ways has shaped some of the fundamental divides of class, wealth and power in this country.

Going back to ground zero in this battle is Kim Phillips Fein in her new book Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics.

My conversation with Kim Phillips-Fein:

What We Can Learn From Looking At Economic Interests That Crossed the Battle Lines During the Last Civil War

It’s always so interesting all the assumptions we make about history. They tell us something about the assumptions we might be making about our divide today.

When we think about the Civil War era, for example, we think in clear lines...the North vs. the South. Yet in families, in communities and in the states themselves, many were conflicted. Then as now, there were personal and economic interests that crossed over both sides.

Nowhere was this more the case than in the city of New York. While seemingly a part of the North, its economic interests in cotton, shipping and even the slave trade made New York what it has always been. A capital of commerce, whose interests in the context of the war were conflicted. A cautionary tale about our divide today.

This is the story that my guest John Strausbaugh tells in City of Sedition: The History of New York City during the Civil War

My conversation with John Strausbaugh:

Every Single Aspect of Today's Immigration Debate, We've Heard Before

We are a nation of immigrants. For 240 years we have opened our arms to those seeking to come to America and for many of those years New York has been ground zero. But the immigrant story, even in, or especially in New York, has not been one of ease. The process and pain of assimilation, the fear of the other, the competition for resources have always created wedges between immigrant groups and so called nativists.

So why is it that these issues seem to repeat themselves over and over, like a kind of Groundhog Day. The issues are the same, only the ethnic roots change...yet we never seem to learn the lessons.

George Washington University historian Tyler Anbinder looks at this history in City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York

My conversation with Tyler Anbinder:

Primates of Park Avenue

We have always studied other cultures so that perhaps we could better understand our own. The realm of cultural anthropology has provided us keen insights into our evolutionary nature and why we do the strange things we do, as human beings.

Wednesday Martin, has used the tools of cultural anthropology to zero in on one very narrow subgroup. The tiny percentage of the “One Percent” that reside in and around Park Avenue, on the Upper East Side of New York.

Her book Primates of Park Avenue, has gotten a great deal of attention, both for its subject matter, its research and its authenticity. But there is no question that broadly, it accurately reflects a time, a place and a culture that says something about our collective character in 2015.

The ecological history of greater New York

In communities all across America debates rage about zoning, building, and development. In most cases, however, the debate is around the margins. Most places have long since evolved into what they are. New York City is perhaps the penultimate example.

While arguments still do go on about height limits, shadows and railyards, the city has long since determined its destiny. For New York it has been, at least since the mid 18th century, a forward march to becoming the amazing city it is today.

Ted Steinberg's Gotham Unbound:  The Ecological History of Greater New York, gives us a detailed history of that urban evolution.

My conversation with Ted Steinberg: