Mason Williams, historian and associate professor at Williams College, and the author of City of Fortune: Inequality and the Making of Contemporary New York (W.W. Norton, 2026), argues that New York's recovery from the 1970s fiscal crisis ushered in an era of deepening inequality.

Photo: Pedestrians on the sidewalk pass jewelry stores (Midtown Jewelers and Diamond Center) on West 47th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, March 1979. (Photo by Peter Keegan/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.