ABOUT THIS BOOK

Upends entrenched thinking about cities, demonstrating how urban economies are defined—or constrained—by the fiscal imagination of policymakers, activists, and residents.

Many local policymakers make decisions based on a deep-seated belief: what’s good for the rich is good for cities. Convinced that local finances depend on attracting wealthy firms and residents, municipal governments lavish public subsidies on their behalf. Whatever form this strategy takes—tax-exempt apartments, corporate incentives, debt-financed mega projects—its rationale remains consistent and assumed to be true. But this wasn’t always the case. Between the 1870s and the 1970s, a wide range of activists, citizens, and intellectuals in New York City connected local fiscal crises to the greed and waste of the rich. These figures saw other routes to development, possibilities rooted in alternate ideas about what was fiscally viable.

In The Menace of Prosperity, Daniel Wortel-London argues that urban economics and politics are shaped by what he terms the “fiscal imagination” of policymakers, activists, advocates, and other figures. His survey of New York City during a period of explosive growth shows how residents went beyond the limits of redistributive liberalism to imagine how their communities could become economically viable without the largesse of the wealthy. Their strategies—which included cooperatives, public housing, land-value taxation, public utilities, and more—centered the needs and capabilities of ordinary residents as the basis for local economies that were both prosperous and just.

Overturning stale axioms about economic policy, The Menace of Prosperity shows that not all growth is productive for cities. Wortel-London’s ambitious history demonstrates the range of options we’ve abandoned and hints at the economic frameworks we could still realize—and the more democratic cities that might result.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Daniel Wortel-London is visiting assistant professor of history at Bard College.

REVIEWS

“Wortel-London offers a timely primer on the history of urban economic development, demonstrating how time and again the desire to grow New York City’s economy did more to widen inequality than to solve fiscal woes. The Menace of Prosperity challenges the orthodoxy that all growth is good and powerfully asserts that there were—and are—alternative approaches to the elite-driven urban development that has dominated US cities since the nineteenth century. A more just economic future depends on a reckoning with past failures, and Wortel-London has provided a carefully researched and compellingly written account that those who work in urban policy today would do well to consult.”

— Claire Dunning, author of “Nonprofit Neighborhoods: An Urban History of Inequality and the American State”

“During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, New York City became the nation’s and then the world’s capital of capital. But to those who lived there, New York City remained just that—a city of working families who rode subways and buses, sent their kids to public schools, and struggled to pay the rent. As Wortel-London brilliantly shows in this compelling book, the work and welfare of New Yorkers and the public servants they elected was shaped and often dictated by the ideologies and interests of capital. From the C-suites of global financial institutions, the destiny of New York City was decided. Wortel-London’s timely book reminds us that the goods of ‘economic growth’ aren’t distributed evenly or fairly, and that by chasing it we cheat ourselves out of a better and more livable future for all.”

— Brian Phillips Murphy, author of “Building the Empire State: Political Economy in the Early Republic”

“The Menace of Prosperity is a shockingly provocative history of New York’s political economy, which targets the conventional wisdom of generations of politicians and scholars. No one escapes Wortel-London’s critique. He roasts conservatives who try to subsidize the rich, liberals who try to sustain the system with subsidies to the poor, and neoliberals, who try to do both. Whether or not you agree with Wortel-London, The Menace of Prosperity is a must-read for any scholar or policymaker invested in the city’s future.”

— Jonathan Soffer, author of “Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City”

“The wealth of America’s cities are immense; the most important lesson of Wortel-London’s magisterial history is that, if tens of thousands of city residents over the years have seen, in their time and in their particular context, a means to tie that wealth less to elite use and more to abundant employment, why shouldn’t we join those who are continuing to seek to realize, in today’s context, this vision once more?”

— Front Porch Republic

“Both richly detailed and visionary, The Menace of Prosperity is an ambitious and important new history of New York’s recurring struggles over growth and inequality.”

— Forbes

“The Menace of Prosperity arrives at a time when alternative ideas about how to run New York are once again within reach. More than anything in recent memory, the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor has shifted the political narrative, offering voters a chance to imagine a city that serves their needs, not those of real estate lobbies and the ultrawealthy. Some of Mamdani’s signature proposals resonate with Wortel-London’s ideas, especially municipal grocery stores, which hearken back to the days when cities could generate revenue from public services. As the prospect of a Mamdani mayoralty becomes reality, city hall staffers would benefit from reading Wortel-London’s cautionary tale of what happens if a city refuses to confront the vested interests holding it for ransom.”

— Jacobin

“Reflects on what kind of development, with what kinds of consequences, American towns and cities need to cultivate today.”

— Journal of Economic Literature

“Recommended.”

— Choice

“In tracing various attempts to challenge the prosperity consensus and to empower the urban public, Wortel-London provides a needed archive of urban political thought just as new fiscal imaginaries could once again take root in New York City.”

— Capital & Class

“This meticulously researched account of economic development politics in New York City over roughly a century is also an indictment of a fiscal logic that continues to drive planning, subsidy policy, and public capital investment. . . . Is it possible for urban economic development policy to produce broad benefit, rather than simply adding value to assets in the portfolios of the already-wealthy? The question is one that increasingly animates urbanists inside and outside of academia, making this book a valuable new addition to the literature.”

— Urban Affairs Review

“Explores the history of modern urban economic development, highlighting the stories of struggle over the costs of elite-driven growth in New York City from 1865 through 1981. Reflects on what kind of development, with whatkinds of consequences, American towns and citiesneed to cultivate today.”

— Journal of Economic Literature

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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