Bloomberg on possibility of New York reverting to 1970s New York: 

When discussing the current crisis, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, now seeking a third term, promises that he will not allow the city to return to the darkness of those days, although he stresses that it faces "giant financial problems."

"I know some are concerned that city services will erode," he recently told reporters. "Let me remind you that the city went down that road in the 1970s ... I can just tell you that we are not going to make that mistake again."

Martin Rubin's Thrillers may deserve a reconsideration. In his section "Supercops" (137) he notes that an influx of police thrillers in the 70s may be due to law and order issues being foregrounded in 1968 and 1972 political campaigns and to "a general (though transitional and deeply conflicted) swing to the right in American politics. "Transitional and conflicted" is interesting to me here. Is there a sense in which the fear of city deployed in these films is politically ambiguous? Also, police films of this period seem to be where social issues of the day get there most nuanced and for the most part, liberal working through.