Summary
"Forever!" exclaims the mayor with a mixture of incredulity and indignation. He is answering a question he clearly considers not only preposterous but impertinent, and almost immoral -- which few things are considered here. The question is, how long can this horizontal city, the world capital of exuberant excess, continue to sprawl its away across the desert?
Oscar Goodman, resplendent in a chalk-stripe suit worthy of Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls, occupies a City Hall office cluttered with souvenirs of celebrities. He started as a young defense lawyer in Philadelphia, where he was given his first job by an official in the district attorney's office -- Arlen Specter, now a four-term U.S. senator. Goodman came here in 1964 with $87 in his pocket ("I could not afford to go home") to offer his services to some of the mobsters who were then sort of the chamber of commerce. They, and the Teamsters' pension fund, provided seed money for the city before it became sedate, in its fashion.See the full content of this document
Extract
Building the First City of the 21st Century
GOODMAN CHEERFULLY ascribes his ascent in life to the 1968 Omnibus Crime Act. Thanks to cases generated by its wiretap provisions, his fortunes waxed. So did the city's, and ...
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