New York City: Four Decades of Success, Excess and Transformation, with Thomas Dyja, author of New York, New York, New York

In conversation with Simon Kuper

Forty years ago, New York City was violent and nearly bankrupt. By the time Covid-19 hit, it was the safest big city in the US, had overcome September 11 and the global financial crisis, and acquired a new problem that nobody in the 1970s had imagined: excess wealth. The city had become too expensive for most of its inhabitants, and risked becoming a sort of giant luxury store. How did this happen? Who are the main people who brought about these changes? And where can New York go from here? The New York Times Book Review calls Dyja’s new book “a tour de force, a work of astonishing breadth and depth.”

Thomas Dyja’s previous books include The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream, a New York Times Notable book and winner of the 2013 Heartland Prize for Non-fiction. He has also written three novels and a biography of civil rights pioneer Walter White. A Chicago native, he has lived in New York for almost the entire period spanned by his new book.

Simon Kuper is a columnist for the Financial Times.