Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York's Underground Economy
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.92 (530 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0143125796 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 304 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-06-18 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
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. 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. His greatest guide is Shine, an African American drug boss based in Harlem who hopes to break into the elusive, upscale cocaine market. 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.Venkatesh closely follows a dozen New Yorkers locked in the underground economy. Here, you need to float.”Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York’s Underground Economy chronicles Venkatesh’s decade of discovery and loss
Underground Networks in the Global City K. N. I've read Professor Venkatesh's previous account of his fieldwork, written for a popular audience, *Gang Leader for a Day* (2008). *Floating City* picks up where that book left off, with Venkatesh having moved to New York, restless to continue his research in urban sociology yet not wanting to r. Ambiguously defined I felt the writer was a bit self conscious. He admits that, but still, I admit it did bother me at times. In the world in which he chose to navigate and 'research' one never knows exactly how accurate an account of that he wishes to study, that he is actually obtaining. It seemed interesting, ye. Internetrow said If you still believe that the poor don't try hard enough. Another work by the Columbia University sociologist Venkatesh, who illuminates the "darker" side of New York City dwellers. If you still believe that the poor don't try hard enough, read this book. It demonstrates how some poor people can't catch a break and how others resort to any means they c
He states, The more I could penetrate the underground if it was marginal, criminal or tinged with outsider status, count me in. At the same time, he observes kindness in the most unexpected places and people with so little reaching out to those with even less with remarkable loyalty and compassion. The people run businesses; they operate with a plan, seek profits and contain costs, hire, and fire while looking for new markets. And clearly, some of those he meets do not survive. He finds extreme violence, which he describes as professional, nothing personal, and just business. He observes the essence of mobility, with people moving across physical space as well as reaching beyond their preordained lot in life. From Booklist Venkatesh, academic and ethnographer, lives within the underground economy in New Yo