IN DEBT TO GROWTH: PUBLIC FINANCE IN NEW YORK CITY, 1880-1943 with Daniel Wortel-London by Hagley Museum and Library

IN DEBT TO GROWTH: REAL ESTATE & THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PUBLIC FINANCE IN NEW YORK CITY, 1880-1943

Daniel Wortel-London is a recent PhD in American History from New York University, with a research focus on political, urban, and fiscal history. Dr. Wortel-London was the 2019-2020 Louis Galambos National Fellow in Business & Politics at the Hagley Center for the History of Business, Technology, & Society, and has worked as a public policy researcher for the Global Parliament of Mayors & the Adelphi Institute, an instructor at City College & the Jacob Riis Settlement House, and as a curatorial assistant at the Museum of the City of New York.

Dr. Wortel-London’s dissertation, “In Debt to Growth: Real Estate & the Political Economy of Public Finance in New York City, 1880-1943,” investigates the changing relation of public finance and real estate development in New York City between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. Whereas many historians have viewed these topics in isolation, assuming that urban fiscal policy merely reflects broader social and economic forces, his research reveals that decisions over how – and by whom - urban real estate should be taxed or subsidized had independent and powerful effects on the distribution of wealth, power, and social equity within American cities.