Floating City: Hustlers, Strivers, Dealers, Call Girls and Other Lives in Illicit New York

(Paperback)

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From the bestselling author of Gang Leader for a Day, a rare glimpse inside New York's illicit underworld 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.

Reviews

A deeply researched, revealing study... novelistic... an unexpectedly vivid image of a New York not many get to see -- Craig Taylor * Guardian *

Author Bio

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.