It's the future - 1999 in fact! Over 7 billion humans, 35 million of them in New York City where a cop, a gangster's moll and a street kid all collide on their no longer separate searches for food and water security. Shanties, tent cities, people living in ships and cars that can't move because there's no more oil. Sounds like Harrison only got the date wrong...

It's an odd book tackling the question of over-population back in the 1960s when it seems to have first been taken seriously (though not by policy makers, plainly). The story is told quite seriously which may come as a surprise to folks familiar with Harrison's OTT spoof/satires starring the Stainless Steel Rat and the points are made deftly - except towards the end when one of the characters turns into a talking head and starts handing out lectures about contraception, Catholicism and politics. This spoiled matters somewhat by being too overt and heavy handed. It's also a bit of a shame that the only pleasant female character is the most minor one.

I can't help contrasting this book with [b:A Torrent of Faces|2324240|A Torrent of Faces|James Blish|/assets/nocover/60x80.png|2330764] in which a future population of 1 Trillion people is postulated. Rather than a dystopian New York there's a world city and no apparent mineral resource problem. Less realistic but more fun...