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Title: Appeals to the emotions, not to the mind
Review: I was disappointed with this book, because the author maintains that one man "decided to save" the city from bankruptcy and self-destruction. There are simpler and, at the same time, more sophisticated explanations. I'll indicate two here: a city's unsustainable finances are, well, unsustainable. A financial crisis necessitates a remedy, so that any remedy was imposed is no surprise. Second, the entire economy performed well in the 1990's, so the fact that Philadelphia did comparatively well coming out of the modest recession of the early 1990's is, again, no big surprise.There are some nicely crafted segments of this book, and there are pleny of hastily crafted segments. For readers who like vignettes about real people, there are a handful of those. Readers who would have preferred some thoughtful observations or commentary on political economy should look elsewhere.
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