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After his insider's study of Chicago crack gangs electrified the academy, Columbia University sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh spent a decade immersed in New York's underbelly, observing the call girls, drug dealers, prostitutes and other strivers that make up this booming underground economy. Amidst the trust-funder cocktail parties, midtown strip clubs, and immigrant-run sex shops, he discovers a surprisingly fluid and dynamic social world - one that can be found in global cities everywhere. Floating City is Venkatesh's journey through the 'vast invisible continent' of New York's underground economy - a thriving yet largely unseen world that exists in parallel to our own.
About the author
Sudhir Venkatesh is the William B. Ransford Professor of Sociology, and the Committee on Global Thought, at Columbia University. His last book
Gang Leader for a Day, based on the decade he spent with the Black Kings gang in Chicago, was an international bestseller and received a Best Book award from
The Economist. He lives in New York City.
Summary
Amidst the trust-funder cocktail parties, midtown strip clubs, and immigrant-run sex shops, the author discovers a surprisingly fluid and dynamic social world - one that can be found in global cities everywhere.
Report
A deeply researched, revealing study... novelistic... an unexpectedly vivid image of a New York not many get to see Craig Taylor Guardian
