New York City 1970s fiscal crisis

Immediately after World War II, New York City became known as one of the world's greatest cities. However, after peaking in population in 1950, the city began to feel the effects of white flight to the suburbs, a downturn in industry and commerce as businesses left for places where it was cheaper and easier to operate, an increase in crime, and an upturn in its welfare burden, all of which reached a nadir in the city's fiscal crisis of the 1970s, when it barely avoided defaulting on its obligations and declaring bankruptcy.

As many great cities lay in ruins after World War II, New York City assumed a new global prominence. It became the home of the United Nations headquarters, built 1947–1952; inherited the role of Paris as center of the art world with Abstract Expressionism; and became a rival to London as an international art market. Yet the population declined after 1950, with increasing suburbanization in the New York metropolitan area as pioneered in Levittown, New York.

November 15, 1948, saw a turning point in the city's economy: the Interstate Commerce Commission began allowing barges to charge fees for transporting goods from rail terminals in New Jersey to piers in Manhattan. This led to the decline of the port, the piers, and places such as Washington Market in Lower Manhattan.

Meanwhile, Midtown Manhattan, fueled by postwar prosperity, was experiencing an unprecedented building boom that changed its very appearance. Glass-and-steel office towers in the new International Style began to replace the ziggurat-style towers (built in wedding-cake style) of the prewar era. Also rapidly changing was the eastern edge of the East Village close to FDR Drive. Many traditional apartment blocks were cleared and replaced with large-scale public housing projects. In Lower Manhattan, urban renewal began to take shape around 1960, led by David Rockefeller's construction of the One Chase Manhattan Plaza building.

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