In 1978, New York City was dangerous, filthy, and falling apart; over the next 30 years, though, it became a different place—kinder and meaner, richer and poorer, more like America and less like what it had always been. Thomas Dyja's sweeping account shows it wasn't the work of a single policy or mastermind, nor was it a morality tale of gentrification or crime. Profiling NYC's very different mayors and its diverse populations, Dyja also looks at how 9/11, COVID, and police violence were symptoms of existing problems, even as they caused major changes in the city.