{"product_id":"floating-city-a-rogue-sociologist-lost-and-found-in-new-yorks-underground-economy-paperback","title":"Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York's Underground Economy - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eSudhir Venkatesh\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNew York is a city of highs and lows, where wealthy elites share the streets with desperate immigrants and destitute locals. Bridging this economic divide is New York's underground economy, the invisible network of illicit transactions between rich and poor that secretly weaves together the whole city. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSudhir Venkatesh, acclaimed sociologist at Columbia University and author of \u003ci\u003eGang Leader for a Day\u003c\/i\u003e, returns to the streets to connect the dots of New York's divergent economic worlds and crack the code of the city's underground economy. Based on Venkatesh's interviews with prostitutes and socialites, immigrants and academics, high end drug bosses and street-level dealers, \u003ci\u003eFloating City\u003c\/i\u003e exposes the underground as the city's true engine of social transformation and economic prosperity--revealing a wholly unprecedented vision of New York. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA memoir of sociological investigation, \u003ci\u003eFloating City\u003c\/i\u003e draws from Venkatesh's decade of research within the affluent communities of Upper East Side socialites and Midtown businessmen, the drug gangs of Harlem and the sex workers of Brooklyn, the artists of Tribeca and the escort services of Hell's Kitchen. Venkatesh arrived in the city after his groundbreaking research in Chicago, where crime remained stubbornly local: gangs stuck to their housing projects and criminals stayed on their corners. But in \u003ci\u003eFloating City\u003c\/i\u003e, Venkatesh discovers that New York's underground economy unites instead of divides inhabitants: a vast network of \"off the books\" transactions linking the high and low worlds of the city. Venkatesh shows how dealing in drugs and sex and undocumented labor bridges the conventional divides between rich and poor, unmasking a city knit together by the invisible threads of the underground economy. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eVenkatesh closely follows a dozen New Yorkers locked in the underground economy. His greatest guide is Shine, an African American drug boss based in Harlem who hopes to break into the elusive, upscale cocaine market. Without connections among wealthy whites, Shine undertakes an audacious campaign of self-reinvention, leaving behind the certainties of race and class with all the drive of the greatest entrepreneurs. As Shine explains to Venkatesh, \"This is New York  We're like hummingbirds, man. We go flower to flower. . . . Here, you need to float.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eFloating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York's Underground Economy\u003c\/i\u003e chronicles Venkatesh's decade of discovery and loss in the shifting terrain of New York, where research subjects might disappear suddenly and new allies emerge by chance, where close friends might reveal themselves to be criminals of the lowest order. Propelled by Venkatesh's numerous interviews and firsthand research, \u003ci\u003eFloating City\u003c\/i\u003e at its heart is a story of one man struggling to understand a complex global city constantly in the throes of becoming.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSudhir Venkatesh \u003c\/b\u003eis the William B. Ransford Professor of Sociology and a member of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. His most recent book is \u003ci\u003eGang Leader for a Day\u003c\/i\u003e, a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller that received a best book of the year award from \u003ci\u003eThe Economist\u003c\/i\u003e. Venkatesh's writings have appeared in the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e, and the \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in New York City.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 304\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.9 x 7.9 x 5.3 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e August 26, 2014\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51749277991200,"sku":"9780143125792","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/95b2c217741e83b2ee6beb5b161f2882.webp?v=1779928631","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/floating-city-a-rogue-sociologist-lost-and-found-in-new-yorks-underground-economy-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}