An Excerpt from Fear City

New York’s Fiscal Crisis And The Rise Of Austerity Politics

Kim Phillips-Fein’s gripping narrative history, Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis And The Rise Of Austerity Politics, has received high praise from a wide ensemble of interested and prominent voices. For instance, James K. Galbraith says: “This revealing narrative of New York’s transformation from working-class social democracy to the glittering home ...
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An Excerpt from Fear City

Making a Hostile Environment

Why the deportation of sex offenders matters

The case of the “Asian grooming gang” from the Rochdale area of Greater Manchester is notorious. Over a two-year period, a group of nine men plied young girls with food, alcohol and drugs in order to sexually exploit them. The men were sentenced in May 2012, following a high-profile trial. ...
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Making a Hostile Environment

Creativity

In /and /as the University

Every day brings more talk about the role of “creativity” in shaping urban futures. Most of such talk consists of paeans to personal and social development through art and design, technology, healthcare, and higher education. The University of the Arts in Philadelphia has even produced a graduate program to study creativity. ...
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Creativity

Masterpiece Cakeshop, Presidential Pardons, and Separated Families

Past Present Episode 134

In this episode, Natalia, Neil, and Niki debate the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, Donald Trump’s use of the presidential pardon, and the American tradition of separating families. Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the baker who ...
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Masterpiece Cakeshop, Presidential Pardons, and Separated Families

The Risks of Others

Imperial Nostalgia and Technologies of the Financial Imagination

In late 2014, the East India Company opened a new luxury tea and coffee store at the Royal Exchange in the City of London. Today’s East India Company does not, however, present itself as a tea shop named after the corporation whose officers Adam Smith charged with crafting a “perfectly destructive” system ...
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The Risks of Others

Thinking Politically in the Age of Trump

Introduction to #AgainstTrump: Notes from Year One

A note from the author: This seems like a good time to follow up Jeffrey Goldfarb’s column of last week by posting the Introduction to my new Public Seminar book, #AgainstTrump: Notes from Year One, which is available from Public Seminar as a free download here. "I merely took the energy it takes to pout, ...
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Thinking Politically in the Age of Trump

On Incels

It’s a man’s, man’s problem

Before Alek Minassian murdered ten people -- mostly women -- in Toronto by driving a van down a crowded street, he made a Facebook post that read “The Incel Rebellion Has Already Begun!” Once esoteric, this violently misogynistic ideology has now made its way to the mainstream. Incels, short for the “involuntarily celibate,” ...
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On Incels

Rent Protections Grow Scarcer and Landlord Harassment Gets More Common

The challenges for low-income tenants in New York City

Since the turn of the century, there has been a tectonic shift in the type of housing low-income New Yorkers live in. While most still live in rent-regulated rentals that number is dropping significantly. At the same time, tenants in both rent-regulated and unregulated housing report increased harassment by their ...
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Rent Protections Grow Scarcer and Landlord Harassment Gets More Common

The Flawed Specialized High School System

And Ways to Fix It

Mayor Bill de Blasio faces an uphill battle in Albany in his quest to get rid of the admissions test for elite high schools including Stuyvesant and Bronx High School of Science, but there’s a lot he can do now to advance his Administration’s stated goal of increasing opportunities for ...
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The Flawed Specialized High School System

#AgainstTrump

A re-invitation to read Jeffrey C. Isaac’s Notes from Year One

With the Donald Trump now virtually declaring, “L'Etat, c'est moi,” in his attempts to avoid possible indictment, I can think of no better time than now to highlight Public Seminar’s second book, Jeffrey C. Isaac’s brilliant #AgainstTrump: Notes From Year One (for a free download click here). The book was officially published to coincide with Adam Michnik’s visit ...
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#AgainstTrump

Authoritarianism and the Cultic Dynamic

Traumatic Narcissism in American Politics Today

I spent thirteen years of my life, including all of my thirties, as a fervent devotee of an Indian guru. I lived communally and worked full-time in the guru’s organization, until one day, after a long process I now know was me slowly coming out of dissociation, it dawned on ...
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Authoritarianism and the Cultic Dynamic

The Corporate Outer Circle Goes to Washington

Trump and the Divided Politics of the Corporate Elite

Trump’s background in business is, by now, very familiar: Trump owns and manages the Trump Organization, a privately held real estate and development conglomerate. The Trump Organization’s control over billions of dollars in assets and thousands of employees make Trump a member of what sociologists call the corporate elite. These ...
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The Corporate Outer Circle Goes to Washington