In the years following its near-bankruptcy in 1976 until the end of the 1980s, New York City came to epitomize the debt-driven, deal-oriented, economic boom of the Reagan era. Exploring the interplay between social structural change and political power during this period, John Mollenkopf asks why a city with a large minority population and a long tradition of liberalism elected a conservative mayor who promoted real-estate development and belittled minority activists. Through a careful analysis of voting patterns, political strategies of various interest groups, and policy trends, he explains how Mayor Edward Koch created a powerful political coalition and why it ultimately failed.
With a population and budget exceeding that of many nations, a central position in the world's cultural and corporate networks, and enormous concentrations off wealth and poverty, New York City intensifies interactions among social forces that elsewhere may be hidden or safely separated. The essays in Power, Culture, and Place represent the first comprehensive program of research on this city in a quarter century. Focusing on three historical transformations—the mercantile, industrial, and postindustrial—several contributors explore economic growth and change and the social conflicts that accompanied them. Other papers suggest how popular culture, public space, and street life served as sources of order amidst conflict and disorder. Essays on politics and pluralism offer further reflections on how social tensions are harnessed in the framework of political participation. By examining the intersection of economics, culture, and politics in a shared spatial context, these multidisciplinary essays not only illuminate the City's fascinating and complex development, but also highlight the significance of a sense of "place" for social research. It has been said that cities gave birth to the social sciences, exemplifying and propagating dramatic social changes and proving ideal laboratories for the study of social patterns and their evolution. As John Mollenkopf and his colleagues argue, New York City remains the quintessential case in point.
In the years following its near-bankruptcy in 1976 until the end of the 1980s, New York City came to epitomize the debt-driven, deal-oriented, economic boom of the Reagan era. Exploring the interplay between social structural change and political power during this period, John Mollenkopf asks why a city with a large minority population and a long tradition of liberalism elected a conservative mayor who promoted real-estate development and belittled minority activists. Through a careful analysis of voting patterns, political strategies of various interest groups, and policy trends, he explains how Mayor Edward Koch created a powerful political coalition and why it ultimately failed.
This book explores the interrelations between work and social life. It emphasizes how workers expressive forms and public performances connect with processes of social, cultural, and individual empowerment. Departing from perspectives that emphasize organizational integration, equilibrium, and continuity, the authors present evidence from anthropology, history, and folklore to explore intersection of popular culture and working situations. The authors offer new data in the on-going debate about the separation of work and leisure, and raise questions about the diverse representations of class and the labor process. They identify workers cultural values that emerge within the changing context of production, and that are not merely an outcome of industrial hegemony. Instead, workers representations and articulations of craft mastery, class identity, and gender, reveal transformations of the traditional categories of those who produce and those who appropriate value. The studies of workers lives range from contemporary United States and Mexico to China, India, and Japan.
America’s public parks are in a golden age. Hundreds of millions of dollars—both public and private—fund urban jewels like Manhattan’s Central Park. Keeping the polish on landmark parks and in neighborhood playgrounds alike means that the trash must be picked up, benches painted, equipment tested, and leaves raked. Bringing this often-invisible work into view, however, raises profound questions for citizens of cities. In Who Cleans the Park? John Krinsky and Maud Simonet explain that the work of maintaining parks has intersected with broader trends in welfare reform, civic engagement, criminal justice, and the rise of public-private partnerships. Welfare-to-work trainees, volunteers, unionized city workers (sometimes working outside their official job descriptions), staff of nonprofit park “conservancies,” and people sentenced to community service are just a few of the groups who routinely maintain parks. With public services no longer being provided primarily by public workers, Krinsky and Simonet argue, the nature of public work must be reevaluated. Based on four years of fieldwork in New York City, Who Cleans the Park? looks at the transformation of public parks from the ground up. Beginning with studying changes in the workplace, progressing through the public-private partnerships that help maintain the parks, and culminating in an investigation of a park’s contribution to urban real-estate values, the book unearths a new urban order based on nonprofit partnerships and a rhetoric of responsible citizenship, which at the same time promotes unpaid work, reinforces workers’ domination at the workplace, and increases the value of park-side property. Who Cleans the Park? asks difficult questions about who benefits from public work, ultimately forcing us to think anew about the way we govern ourselves, with implications well beyond the five boroughs.
On the street with gangs in three world cities - Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, and Capetown - Hagedorn discovers that many of them have institutionalized as a strategy to confront a hopeless cycle of poverty, racism, and oppression. The mhilistic appeal of gangsta rap and its ethic of survival "by any means necessary," he argues, provides vital insights into the ideology and persistence of gangs around the world. Proposing how gangs can be encouraged to overcome their violent tendencies, Hagedorn appeals to community leaders to use the urgency, outrage, and resistance common to both gang life and hip-hop to bring gangs into broader movements for social justice."--BOOK JACKET.
“Street gangs mirror the inhuman ambitions and greed of society’s trendsetters and deities even as they fight to the death over scraps from the table of the international drug trade. But John Hagedorn, characteristically, also finds hope in the contradictory values of outlaw youth—selflessness, solidarity, and love amid cupidity and directionless rage—and he maintains the hope that a culture of resistance will ultimately prevail over the forces of self-destruction. Whether one shares his optimism or not, he makes a compelling case that the future of the world will be determined on the streets of our cities.” —Mike Davis, from the Foreword “A World of Gangs is an illuminating journey around the cultures, lives, tragedies, and dreams of millions of rebellious youth around the planet. It is an indispensable work to understand the world we live in and essential reading for students of cities and communities.” —Manuel Castells For the more than a billion people who now live in urban slums, gangs are ubiquitous features of daily life. Though still most closely associated with American cities, gangs are an entrenched, worldwide phenomenon that play a significant role in a wide range of activities, from drug dealing to extortion to religious and political violence. In A World of Gangs, John Hagedorn explores this international proliferation of the urban gang as a consequence of the ravages of globalization. Looking closely at gang formation in three world cities-Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, and Capetown-he discovers that some gangs have institutionalized as a strategy to confront a hopeless cycle of poverty, racism, and oppression. In particular, Hagedorn reveals, the nihilistic appeal of gangsta rap and its street ethic of survival “by any means necessary” provides vital insights into the ideology and persistence of gangs around the world. This groundbreaking work concludes on a hopeful note. Proposing ways in which gangs might be encouraged to overcome their violent tendencies, Hagedorn appeals to community leaders to use the urgency, outrage, and resistance common to both gang life and hip-hop in order to bring gangs into broader movements for social justice. John M. Hagedorn is associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is editor of Gangs in the Global City and author of the highly influential People and Folks: Gangs, Crime, and the Underclass in a Rustbelt City. MacArthur fellow Mike Davis is the author of many books, including Planet of Slums and, most recently, Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb.
Most New Yorkers have very little knowledge of how influence is wielded in Albany. This acclaimed book offers a chance to look behind those closed doors. The authors--an Albany-based political scientist and a former State Assembly member, now joined by an expert on both state politics and political blogging and networking--infuse their discussion of institutions and processes with the drama and significance of real power politics. Completely revised and updated with extensive new material, the book covers recent political developments and electoral contests as well as all the basics: constitutional issues; historical, economic, social, and demographic factors; the functioning of executive, legislative, and judicial institutions; urban, local, and special district governments; parties, interest groups, and bureaucracies; finance, budgets, and health, education, and welfare programs. Throughout, the authors are attentive to the many paradoxes and dualities that distinguish political, social, and economic life in the Empire State. To keep coverage current, updates, links, and related readings will be provided via the authors' website.
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