This book covers a subject i’m fascinated with – why are our cities changing? It feels as if the life is being removed from the places that we live, and what exactly is causing this to happen?

Unfortunately, in the 20-odd bloated hours of this book, you barely learn anything. The same points are covered again and again – bloomberg and highrises are ruining the city. Each chunk of the book goes over an area and what it used to be like, but it’s frustrating how this always falls into ‘when I moved here it was great, now it’s bad’, with little explanation to expand on that.

There are so many interesting things to try and find out about why the world is becoming this way – for example, developers keep gentrifying areas with expensive stores and apartment buildings, but what are the economics behind this? where are all these wealthy people coming from, and where do the displaced go?

The book also feels like it’s written from an incredibly narrow viewpoint – there is no thought or document to what may have come before and been replaced by what the writer loved (though there is a hugely long history to this city) and there is barely a word said on the communities that get displaced. only ‘oh how I miss being able to do X or Y’

On top of this, the narrator really makes already self-centred complaining sound even more whiney. How many times do we have to hear him complain “oooohhhhh ooohh oh oh how I miss my reaaaall cappucinoooo from [insert place] for [insert low price].

There’s also a lot of lamenting things that, sure I understand gave a certain place a lot of character, but aren’t necessarily bad things to see switched out for something else that could be interesting. one chapter of the book where he literally laments that he can no longer go and pay to see a woman masturbate for a few bucks. poor guy! but again the tone is, ‘this town used to be great’.

I think as a last thought, the thing that’s a real shame is that the book speaks nothing of the new york that emerged after he moved to the city. what about the culture of the 90’s? or the 00’s? After listening to this whole book I find myself simply wishing i’d found other material on the subject matter.

The story never evolves, it’s just one long list of why this guy thinks everything was better when he was younger.