Crisis Cities

When the news broke in 1975 that New York City was on the brink of fiscal collapse, few believed it was possible. How could the country's largest metropolis fail? How could the capital of the financial world go bankrupt? Yet the city was indeed billions of dollars in the red, with no way to pay back its debts. Bankers and politicians alike seized upon the situation as evidence that social liberalism, which New York famously exemplified, was unworkable.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK The dramatic story of the Flint water crisis, by a relentless physician who stood up to power. “Stirring . . . [a] blueprint for all those who believe . . . that ‘the world . . . should be full of people raising their voices.’”—The New York Times...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE ROXANE GAY'S AUDACIOUS BOOK CLUB PICK FINALIST FOR THE URSULA K. LE GUIN PRIZE ""Moving and thought-provoking . . . offering psychological insights in lyrical prose while seriously exploring speculative conceits."" —...

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE ATLANTIC’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR Through the “revelatory and gut-wrenching” (Associated Press) stories of five Atlanta families, this landmark work of...

In a citywide crisis, visibility is a liability. The people who make it through are not always the strongest or the most prepared. They are the ones who stay quiet, think ahead, and know how to disappear when things turn chaotic. Low Profile: Urban Survival Tactics is your essential field guide to staying safe, sharp, and unnoticed during any urban emergency. This book teaches you how to blend in, avoid panic, and protect yourself when the power is out, the streets are dangerous, and help is nowhere nearby. You will learn how to: Use the gray man approach to move through cities without ...

As an educator and avid learner, I set out to understand the complex issue of homelessness in America. After watching hundreds of interviews with people living on the streets, I wrote this book to share their stories and perspectives. Across twenty heartfelt chapters, you will meet individuals like Bruce, a lawyer-turned-beggar in D.C.; Penny, a young woman selling her body for drug money in Detroit; and James, an entrepreneur in Columbus still holding onto hope. Each person describes in their own words how they wound up homeless, whether through job loss, addiction, childhood trauma, lack ...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and the American Book Award, the best-selling Common Ground is much more than the story of the busing crisis in Boston as told through the experiences of three families. As Studs Terkel remarked, it's "gripping, indelible...a truth about all large American cities." 

Chicago is a world-class city, but it is also a city in crisis. Crime is up, schools have repeatedly shut down due to conflict between City Hall and the powerful teachers' union, and COVID-19 only deepened the entrenched poverty, institutional racism, and endless tug of war between the city's haves and have nots. For four years, the person at the center of this storm was Lori Lightfoot.

“Darkly funny, surprisingly tender . . . witheringly dead-on.” — Los Angeles Times Named one of the year’s best novels by: Time Salon.com Los Angeles Times NPR/Fresh Air New West Kansas City Star St. Louis Post-Dispatch A comic and heartfelt novel from the #1 New...

Greedy Bastards tells the story of Sheryl and her new team’s uphill battle to turn around San Antonio city government. She takes you behind closed doors to share the hard changes she made and the strategies she used to create mutually beneficial solutions to the city’s biggest problems. Many of the issues Sheryl found in San Antonio are present in cities across the US. Packed with wins and losses, lessons learned, and pitfalls encountered, Greedy Bastards is a guidebook for any city official tasked with turning around a struggling city.

From Pulitzer Prize-winning design critic Alexandra Lange, a beguiling look at the waste-not architecture of the 1970s—and the consequences of leaving it behind. In 1977, Jimmy Carter sat by a fire and urged Americans to lower their thermostats, “live thriftily,” and help their neighbors...

This program is read by actor, singer, and dancer Jelani Alladin, who originated the role of Kristoff in Broadway's Frozen musical. A fierce and riveting queer coming-of-age story following the personal and political awakening of a young gay Black man in 1980s New York City, from the television...

New York City, East Village, 1984. A young woman with the power to see the ghosts of her friends is haunted by the one who refuses to return—a dazzling, big-hearted debut of friendship and community during a time of devastation and defiance. Oprah Daily’s #1 Pick for Summer Reading ONE OF...

“Gripping.”—Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls “Shetterly’s debut achieves a subtle grace, a quality of light and shadow worthy of a Bergman film.”—Allegra Goodman, New York Times Book Review ""Pete and Alice in Maine is a tender, big-hearted, clear-eyed portrait of a marriage...

In recent years the young, educated, and affluent have surged back into cities, reversing decades of suburban flight and urban decline. And yet all is not well, Richard Florida argues in The New Urban Crisis. Florida demonstrates how the same forces that power the growth of the world's superstar cities also generate their vexing challenges: gentrification, unaffordability, segregation, and inequality.

Three years after the Monster Massacre, members of Rebecca’s old wolf pack have begun to go missing without a trace. The world has undergone many changes in the years since monsters came out of the shadows. An anti-monster group known as the Black Hand has started to organize across the United States. In response, pro-monster organizations have been growing in numbers and militancy. Targeted killings of suspected monsters and their allies, monsters spirited away in the dead of night, and the beginnings of pro-monster legislation are all signs of a cosmic shift on the horizon.

The rain never stops. The world is drowning. Survival is everything. When the Rain Came is the first YA book in an all-new, action-packed dystopian adventure series by New York Times bestselling author Matt Eicheldinger. A #8 Publishers Weekly Bestseller! “If we stay here, if we keep wandering...

Dive into the gripping environmental history and geopolitical conflicts driving the global fight for freshwater survival. Perfect for a thought-provoking commute, this urgent narrative transforms an everyday utility into the definitive resource shaping human destiny. Discover how hidden...

Rome, the 1890s. A young French priest arrives in the Eternal City carrying a single suitcase — and a manuscript that could end his career. Abbé Pierre Froment has written a book daring to imagine a Catholic Church reconciled with modern science, democracy, and the poor. Summoned to Rome to defend it before it can be condemned, he throws himself into a city he has only ever loved from afar: golden ruins and marble palaces, scheming cardinals and starving peasants, where every staircase seems to lead toward — or away from — the Pope. He finds shelter with the Boccaneras, a princely ...

Experience the ultimate Cold War history of survival as an unprecedented military logistics miracle saves a starving city. Step into the shattered streets of postwar Germany, where an uneasy alliance fractures into a high-stakes standoff against a sudden Soviet blockade. With millions facing...