Floating City

A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York's Underground Economy

By: Sudhir Venkatesh

Narrated by: Sudhir Venkatesh

The acclaimed Columbia University sociologist and author of Gang Leader for a Day returns to the streets to connect the dots of New York’s divergent economic worlds and crack the code of the city’s underground economy. Based on Venkatesh’s interviews with prostitutes and socialites, immigrants and academics, high-end drug bosses and street-level dealers, Floating City exposes the underground as the city’s true engine of social transformation and economic prosperity—revealing a wholly unprecedented vision of New York.

A memoir of sociological investigation, Floating City draws from Venkatesh’s decade of research within the affluent communities of Upper East Side socialites and Midtown businessmen, the drug gangs of Harlem and the sex workers of Brooklyn, the artists of Tribeca and the escort services of Hell’s Kitchen. Venkatesh arrived in the city after his groundbreaking research in Chicago, where crime remained stubbornly local: Gangs stuck to their housing projects and criminals stayed on their corners. But in Floating City, Venkatesh discovers that New York’s underground economy unites instead of divides inhabitants: a vast network of “off the books” transactions linking the high and low worlds of the city. Venkatesh shows how dealing in drugs and sex and undocumented labor bridges the conventional divides between rich and poor, unmasking a city knit together by the invisible threads of the underground economy.

Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York’s Underground Economy chronicles Venkatesh’s decade of discovery and loss in the shifting terrain of New York, where research subjects might disappear suddenly and new allies emerge by chance, where close friends might reveal themselves to be criminals of the lowest order. Propelled by Venkatesh’s numerous interviews and firsthand research, Floating City at its heart is a story of one man struggling to understand a complex global city constantly in the throes of becoming.

Critic reviews

New York Magazine:
“If you live in the New York of Shake Shack burgers and business meetings at the W Hotel, you should read Sudhir Venkatesh’s Floating City…. If it’s criminal or iniquitous and happens here, it’s probably to be found in this book.”

The Guardian:
“Compelling…. Like the acclaimed writer Katherine Boo, Venkatesh is interested in deep research, in spending years with subjects and piecing together a detailed portrait. Unlike Boo, Venkatesh is present in his books. He has crossed the line and entered the scene.”

New York Daily News:
“Entire human ecosystems exist undocumented and hidden from view. That Venkatesh can bring them to the surface—if only for brief flashes of their existence—illuminates the worldview of future sociologists, policy-makers, students and citizens.”

Publishers Weekly (starred):
"[A] fascinating X-ray of the city...Venkatesh's engrossing narrative dissects the intricacies of illegal commerce and the subtle ways it both divides and entwines different classes and races, while painting rich, novelistic portraits of its participants and their dreams of self-reinvention."

Kirkus Reviews:
“Venkatesh displays a piercing sense of empathy and ability to translate dry sociological principles into an understanding of the difficult lives of the urban poor....[He] has established a singular voice in urban sociology, and his immersive research and insights remain penetrating and unique.”

Library Journal:
“Venkatesh has a talent for transforming ethnographic observations into character-driven accounts. [Floating City] is an exciting and compelling work....Readers interested in the daily workings of the illicit economy will be fascinated by the complexities and contradictions of the underground economy that Venkatesh details.”

Booklist:
“Venkatesh brings to life the underground economy of New York, where rich and poor and various ethnicities and backgrounds meet and function while they ‘float.’ An enlightening read.”

Couldn't Hit Pause

Would you listen to Floating City again? Why?

I would probably listen to Floating City again if there was a connection in future books if Sudhir would write.

Who was your favorite character and why?

New York was my favorite character. I have only been to New York twice after 2010 so I do not know how New York really was before Giuliani became the Mayor. I have heard of Hell's Kitchen but I am assuming it is not what Sudhir experienced back in 2003.

Have you listened to any of Sudhir Venkatesh’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I read his first book years ago and have enjoyed his ethnography since! It feels like I am a fly on the wall while he talks about what he has observed in the communities he has observed.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I did not have any extreme reactions to the book. I did feel bad about Sudhir's personal life.

Any additional comments?

Great book! I finished it in less than a week!!

Good storytelling

Positively interesting how the author shifts from one narrative to another.. Very different characters with so much in common. The book gives a good notion on the fluidity of the underground economy. And the external view from the author that becomes evident at the end of the chapters is mind blowing.

Rich, poor, drugs, and escorts

Great read. Love the part when Shine tells Sudhir to use change in place of the word fail. Blue bloods have many options.

A weak follow up

I loved his Gang Leader for a Day book. This one feels way to personal and fullnof his own bitterness leaking in to his objectivity. This felt more like a diatribe than a study in sociology.

This book is great!

I loved that this book spoke about these topics in a realistic way and I loved that it had academic value without the use of sterile academic language that is often exclusionary. Definitely recommend!