The 1975 New York City Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of the Age of Austerity
FAIN: FT-61854-14
Kimberly Kathryn Phillips-Fein
New York University (New York, NY 10012-1019)
Fear City will be the first major narrative history of the New York City fiscal crisis of 1975, exploring its causes, the way that it played out in the city and in Washington, D.C., and the impact of government cutbacks on social life and politics in the city. Placing the dramatic events of that year in New York City into the broader national context of the decline of liberalism and the rise of a new politics focused on the free market and government retrenchment, Fear City will show the intense conflicts that the fiscal crisis provoked over the future of New York City. At a time when financial crises, economic inequality and the question of the legitimate scope of government are once again commanding public attention, Fear City will look at the fiscal crisis in 1970s New York City as a critical moment in the dawning of a new age of austerity economics.