The streets were paved with gold [Hardcover]

Ken Auletta (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1979

How - and why - did one of the world's greatest cities come to be teetering on the edge of bankruptcy? Ken Auletta, writer for THE NEW YORKER and columnist for THE DAILY NEWS, shows how the decline of New York City was partly inevitable --- the result of shifting migration patterns and rapidl technological innovations --- and partly caused by anarchic political and economic factions, each angling for its own advantage. His lucid examination also pinpoints the core of New York City's problems --- the failure of liberal democratic government --- and explores what this will mean for the future of all American cities.

"A tremendously impressive combination of reporting and analysis that illuminates not only New York's situation, but also the most basic trends in the politics and economy of the nation as a whole" - James Fallows, Washington Editor, THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

"Absolute must reading for anyone concerned with New York and the urban future." - George Sternlieb, Director, Centor for Urban Policy Researcch, Rutgers University

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 345 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394500199
• ISBN-13: 978-0394500195
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,514,568 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ken Auletta has written the Annals of Communications column for The New Yorker since 1992. He is the author of eight books, including THREE BLIND MICE: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way; GREED AND GLORY ON WALL STREET: The Fall of The House of Lehman; and WORLD WAR 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies. In naming him America's premier media critic, the Columbia Journalism Review said, "no other reporter has covered the new communications revolution as thoroughly as has Auletta." He lives in Manhattan with his wife and daughter.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars A book that was probably never good, and which has certainly not aged well, February 15, 2012

By 

Neurasthenic "neurasthenic" (New York City, New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The streets were paved with gold (Paperback)

New York seems larger than life, and histories of New York can be exciting and important. Not this one, though. Ken Auletta spreads a three-paragraph editorial's worth of insight over 330 pages, attempting to analyze the New York City financial crisis of the late 1970s. He should have started with a history of the crisis, but he doesn't. He should have interviewed major players, but he doesn't. He should have put the problem in the context of broader challenges in municipal and sovereign finance in the late 1970s, but he doesn't. Instead, we get rambling repetitive ruminations over why New York City politicians borrowed so much money, and why nobody tried to stop them. The answer, Auletta concludes, was "politics." It's sophomoric.

Auletta did get an interview with Daniel Patrick Moynihan to discuss the City's financial problems, but his description of their conversation makes clear that he was bored by Moynihan and did not take him seriously.

There was one interesting revelation in the book, something that perhaps people knew at the time but which was news to me -- when the city's problems started becoming clear to the large banks that intermediated its bond sales, they responded by selling their own bond holdings to their customers, much as some banks responded during the recent MBS crisis.

I do not recommend this book.