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In the 1970s, New York City defaulted on its debt, and yes, the consequences were painful. Enrollment plummeted at City University campuses, which until then had offered free education. Seven thousand police officers were laid off. Crime skyrocketed. Services for the poor disappeared.

— Charles Duhigg

Sentiment: NEGATIVE

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✓Similar Perspectives

You might say those who can't repay their student debts shouldn't have borrowed in the first place. But they had no way of knowing just how bad the jobs market would become.

— Robert Reich

Those who remember New York in the 1970s, as I do, look back on a city that had hit a very rough patch - decaying, bankrupt, and crime-ridden. But fun.

— Graydon Carter

I could have easily been a statistic. Growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., it was easy - a little too easy - to get into trouble. Surrounded by poor schools, lack of resources, high unemployment rates, poverty, gangs and more, I watched as many of my peers fell victim to a vicious cycle of diminished opportunities and imprisonment.

— Al Sharpton

When I came to America, there was a lot of decadence in New York in the early '70s because the city was bankrupt and you could do whatever you want!

— Maripol

In the 1970s in New York, everyone slept till noon. It was a grungy, dangerous, bankrupt city without normal services most of the time. The garbage piled up and stank during long strikes by the sanitation workers. A major blackout led to days and days of looting. The city seemed either frightening or risible to the rest of the nation.

— Edmund White

Many financial and industrial companies have been bailed out with the public's money, but very few of those who had run those companies have been punished for their failures. Yes, the top managers of those companies have lost their jobs - but with a fat pension and mostly with a handsome severance payment.

— Ha-Joon Chang

Our schools should get five years to get back to where they were in 1963. If they're still bad maybe we should declare educational bankruptcy, give the people their money and let them educate themselves and start their own schools.

— William Bennett

Municipal debt outstanding doubled in the past 10 years. And in the past 30 years, the U.S. has been in real economic nirvana.

— Meredith Whitney

New York State is upside down and backwards; high taxes and low performance. The New York State government was at one time a national model. Now, unfortunately, it's a national disgrace. Sometimes, the corruption in Albany could even make Boss Tweed blush.

— Andrew Cuomo

✗Opposing Perspectives

In the 1970s, New York City avoided bankruptcy because wise political leaders like Gov. Hugh L. Carey believed both in strong labor unions and robust banks and companies.

— Felix Rohatyn