Lunch & Learn: The Menace of Prosperity

Join the NYC Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) each month for our virtual Lunch & Learn Series – an intimate conversation with agency staff and special guests focusing on the collections of the Municipal Archives and Library and the history of New York City.

On November 18th, Dr. Daniel Wortel-London will discuss his new book, The Menace of Prosperity: Economic Development and its Discontents in New York City, 1870–1981, which explores how generations of New Yorkers have struggled with the promises and perils of economic development.

Spanning New York City’s post–Civil War boom to the 1970s fiscal crisis, Wortel-London will reveal how NYC’s strategies for economic development often led to instability and inequality rather than shared prosperity.

He will also highlight the alternative visions advanced by reformers, workers, and planners, arguing that these often-forgotten movements offer insight into today’s debates over urban governance, fiscal reliance on the wealthy, and the limitations of conventional growth strategies.

Join us to learn how NYC’s fiscal past can shape today’s conversations about economic justice and the future of urban life.

About the Author:

Daniel Wortel-London, PhD, is a historian of U.S. economic policy and thought, as well as a visiting assistant professor of history at Bard College. He earned his PhD from New York University in 2020, where he completed several fellowships.

His research has been published in the Journal of Urban History, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and edited collections by the Columbia University Press, Jacobin, The Washington Post, and the New York Daily News.

Additionally, his work in policy and education includes roles at the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, Occupy Wall Street, various CUNY and NYU universities, and the Museum of the City of New York.