Overview
The Fall of a Great American CityĀ is the story of what is happening today in New York City and in many otherĀ cities across America.Ā It is about how the crisis of affluence is now driving out everything we love most about cities: Ā small shops, decent restaurants, public space, street life, affordable apartments, responsive government, beauty, idiosyncrasy, each other.Ā This is the story of how we came to lose so muchāhow the places we love most were turned over to land bankers, billionaires, the worst people in the world, and criminal landlordsāand how we can - and must -Ā begin to take them back.
Co-published with Harper's Magazine, where an earlierĀ version of this essay was originally published in 2018.
The landlords are killing the town.
As New York City approaches the third decade of the twenty-first century, it is in imminent danger of becoming something it has never been before:Ā unremarkable.Ā By unremarkable I donāt just mean periodic, slump-in-the-art-world, all-the-bands-suck, cinema-is-dead boring.Ā I mean flatlining. Ā No longer a significant cultural entity but a blank white screen of mere existence.Ā I mean The-Worldās-Largest-Gated-Community-with-a-few-cupcake-shops.Ā For the first-time in our history, creative-young-people-will-no-longer want-to-come-here boring.
Even, New-York-is-over boring.Ā Or worse, New York is like everywhere else.Ā Unremarkable.
This is not some new phenomenon, but a cancer thatās been metastasizing on the city for decades now.Ā Even worse, itās not something that anyone wants, except the landlords, and not even all of them.Ā Whatās happening to New York nowāwhatās already happened to most of Manhattan, its core, and what is happening in every American city of means, Boston, Washington, San Francisco, Seattle, you name itāis something that almost nobody wants, but everybody gets.Ā As such, the current urban crisis exemplifies our wider crisis: Ā an America where we believe that we no longer have any ability to control the systems we live under.
This book title, The Fall of a Great American City (New York and the Urban Crisis of Affluence), ISBN: 9781947951143, by Kevin Baker, James Howard Kunstler, published by City Point Press (October 8, 2019) is available in hardcover. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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