Front of Book

But was it fun to live through? Yes and no. Would I go back if I could? No. But the wish to be rid of all that entwining chaos and destruction, of looting, crime, dysfunction, and anarchy was so powerful that it has lead us to a new urban blight almost as bad as the old one. The dense, jungle-like chaos of growth represented by those black markers and their swirling, illegible tags covering the interior of the subway car has been replaced by the anodyne blankness of a bank branch, which is to the city’s landscape what dead air is to the radio.

The Mollification of Manhattan