Inequality, Crime, and Resistance in New York City [Paperback]

Looking closely at New York City’s political development since the 1970s, three “political orders”—conservativism, neoliberalism, and egalitarianism—emerged. InInequality, Crime, and Resistance in New York City, Timothy Weaver argues that the intercurrent impact of these orders has created a constant battle for power.

Weaver brings these clashes to the fore by showing how New York City politics has been shaped by these conflicting orders. He examines the transformation of the city’s political economy in the aftermath of the 1975 fiscal crisis through neoliberal real estate development and privatization, the conservative rise of law-and-order politics in the 1970s to 1990s, and the efforts of the city’s egalitarians to respond to each of these shifts through social movements such as Occupy and Black Lives Matter.

Inequality, Crime, and Resistance in New York Citybelies glib assumptions about the city’s liberal character. Weaver reveals the metropolis not as a homogenous political whole, but as a site in which the victories and defeats of rival political forces change the terms of local citizenship for the millions of residents who call the city home.

In the seriesPolitical Lessons from American CitiesForthcoming Spring 2025"[A]n important work on the interconnections of ideology, political economy, and urban policy. New York continues to play a central part in the life of the American nation, and it reflects and affects trends throughout the country. Timothy Weaver has given us an intriguing analysis of influences on policy in the nation’s economic capital."—Ethnic and Racial Studies“In this compact, crisply written book, Weaver advances a capacious theory for understanding urban political development, and with it delivers a fresh analysis of the much-studied New York case…. [T]heoretically pathlS%