Book Alert / From Welfare State to Real Estate

From Welfare State to Real Estate -- Regime Change in New York City, 1974 to the Present by Kim Moody, The New Press '07, $26.95, 340 pages, ISBN #1595580883. Index, source notes, no bibliography, graphics sprinkled through text.

That the traditional gap between the rich and everyone else in America has widened into a yawning chasm is a contemporary reality. Nowhere is the contrast quite as stark as New York City. Yet, as labor historian Kim Moody writes, Gotham's story is not merely reflective of the national demographic but, rather, the product of a deliberate hijacking of the city's financial apparatus, to encourage development and discourage support for the poor.

Many will remember New York City's desperate financial crisis of the mid-1970s and the straight-armed response of the federal government, punctuated by the New York Daily News headline, "Ford to City: Drop Dead." It was at this juncture, Moody writes, that the city's real estate moguls and commercial leaders managed to gain control of local politics.

Those looking for a hand-wringing screed against the superrich won't find it here. Moody's is a careful analysis of the process by which "real estate interests used state government to alter city governance, increasing mayoral power and shifting budget priorities away from the city's 'social democratic polity' and toward the business elite's own 'developmentalist' agenda." Along the way, Moody describes the remake of Times Square, the strife over the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards and the contributions of Mayors Koch, Guiliani, Dinkins, and Bloomberg to the city's transformation.