City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics. Alex S. Vitale

City of Disorder traces the emergence of the “quality-of-life” paradigm for social control in the 1990s and its displacement of urban liberalism as the dominant political philosophy guiding urban policy and programs. Focusing on New York City in the 1980s and 1990s, Vitale explains the rise of punitive policing and social policies as a result of neoliberal globalization. Through several neighborhood case studies, he argues that residents demanded punitive approaches from the police and city government as a result of their frustration with urban liberal government approaches to addressing the social disorder visible in their neighborhoods (e.g., homelessness, prostitution, and graffiti). This social disorder is the result of growing inequality created by neoliberal economic development strategies pursued by the City. A former practitioner and homeless advocate, Vitale successfully balances writing for both academic and general audiences by grounding his arguments within the academic literature and writing in language free of jargon with an expository tone. The book is appropriate for non-experts (specifically upper division undergraduate and graduate students), as Chapter 1 carefully reviews the theoretical context for understanding the rise of quality-of-life politics from criminology and urban studies perspectives, while Chapters 2–4 clearly define “quality of life,” urban liberalism, and social disorder in a manner accessible to the layperson. These chapters also identify the origins and proponents of each policy approach, their implementation under different New York mayoral administrations, and their success in addressing disorder. The work of geographers (e.g., Neil Smith, Gordon Macleod, David Harvey, Don Mitchell) is acknowledged primarily in discussions of the economic contexts for the backlash against the urban poor, the execution of neoliberal urban policy focused on place-based competition for global capital, and race as a social marker of urban decline. Vitale argues that “the failure of urban liberalism as a governing strategy is the result of the defection of both elites and the middle classes” (p. 26), as well as poor communities, all of whom turn to more repressive social policies. Leading neoconservative and leftist critiques are missing an explanation of the failings of urban liberalism and how they trigger these defections. This study incorporates analyses from both political perspectives to demonstrate the impact of three contradictions in urban liberal policies. First, the Koch and Dinkins administrations underfunded programs to reform and enhance housing and social services in favor of subsidies to financial service sector and commercial real estate interests. Second, social service delivery was implemented by bureaucrats with no meaningful input from communities. Third, despite calls for social tolerance and respect for individual rights, few opportunities were established for social integration of marginalized groups. Chapters 5–7 address these contradictions within specific government policies implemented in New York City. Chapter 5 describes how New York’s liberal mayors subsidized corporate economic development in the name of attracting global investment, which exacerbated the first contradiction of urban liberalism. Chapter 6 tracks the development of policing practices that emphasize aggressive response to problems of public disorder (e.g., visible street homelessness, panhandling, public drinking, etc.) consistent with the “broken windows” theory. The police and mayoral administrations began to take disorder seriously after civilian groups, frustrated by inaction, undermined their authority by providing private enforcement of public order, safety, and sanitation. In Chapter 7, Vitale examines three cases of neighborhood mobilization against public disorder to illustrate how neoconservative quality-of-life approaches to urban policy found favor among former supporters of Democratic administrations. The cases specifically highlight the second and third contradictions of urban liberalism.