Race, Poverty, and American Cities

Race, Poverty, and American Cities PDF Author: John Charles Boger
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807899917
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 614

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Book Description
Precise connections between race, poverty, and the condition of America's cities are drawn in this collection of seventeen essays. Policymakers and scholars from a variety of disciplines analyze the plight of the urban poor since the riots of the 1960s and the resulting 1968 Kerner Commission Report on the status of African Americans. In essays addressing health care, education, welfare, and housing policies, the contributors reassess the findings of the report in light of developments over the last thirty years, including the Los Angeles riots of 1992. Some argue that the long-standing obstacles faced by the urban poor cannot be removed without revitalizing inner-city neighborhoods; others emphasize strategies to break down racial and economic isolation and promote residential desegregation throughout metropolitan areas. Guided by a historical perspective, the contributors propose a new combination of economic and social policies to transform cities while at the same time improving opportunities and outcomes for inner-city residents. This approach highlights the close links between progress for racial minorities and the overall health of cities and the nation as a whole. The volume, which began as a special issue of the North Carolina Law Review, has been significantly revised and expanded for publication as a book. The contributors are John Charles Boger, Alison Brett, John O. Calmore, Peter Dreier, Susan F. Fainstein, Walter C. Farrell Jr., Nancy Fishman, George C. Galster, Chester Hartman, James H. Johnson Jr., Ann Markusen, Patricia Meaden, James E. Rosenbaum, Peter W. Salsich Jr., Michael A. Stegman, David Stoesz, Charles Sumner Stone Jr., William L. Taylor, Sidney D. Watson, and Judith Welch Wegner.

The Colors of Poverty

The Colors of Poverty PDF Author: Ann Chih Lin
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 0871545403
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Given the increasing diversity of the nation—particularly with respect to its growing Hispanic and Asian populations—why does racial and ethnic difference so often lead to disadvantage? In The Colors of Poverty, a multidisciplinary group of experts provides a breakthrough analysis of the complex mechanisms that connect poverty and race. The Colors of Poverty reframes the debate over the causes of minority poverty by emphasizing the cumulative effects of disadvantage in perpetuating poverty across generations. The contributors consider a kaleidoscope of factors that contribute to widening racial gaps, including education, racial discrimination, social capital, immigration, and incarceration. Michèle Lamont and Mario Small grapple with the theoretical ambiguities of existing cultural explanations for poverty disparities. They argue that culture and structure are not competing explanations for poverty, but rather collaborate to produce disparities. Looking at how attitudes and beliefs exacerbate racial stratification, social psychologist Heather Bullock links the rise of inequality in the United States to an increase in public tolerance for disparity. She suggests that the American ethos of rugged individualism and meritocracy erodes support for antipoverty programs and reinforces the belief that people are responsible for their own poverty. Sociologists Darren Wheelock and Christopher Uggen focus on the collateral consequences of incarceration in exacerbating racial disparities and are the first to propose a link between legislation that blocks former drug felons from obtaining federal aid for higher education and the black/white educational attainment gap. Joe Soss and Sanford Schram argue that the increasingly decentralized and discretionary nature of state welfare programs allows for different treatment of racial groups, even when such policies are touted as "race-neutral." They find that states with more blacks and Hispanics on welfare rolls are consistently more likely to impose lifetime limits, caps on benefits for mothers with children, and stricter sanctions. The Colors of Poverty is a comprehensive and evocative introduction to the dynamics of race and inequality. The research in this landmark volume moves scholarship on inequality beyond a simple black-white paradigm, beyond the search for a single cause of poverty, and beyond the promise of one "magic bullet" solution. A Volume in the National Poverty Center Series on Poverty and Public Policy

Poverty & Race in America

Poverty & Race in America PDF Author: Chester W. Hartman
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739114193
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
Collected in this volume are the best articles and symposia from Poverty & Race, the bimonthly newsletter journal of The Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC), a Washington, DC-based national public interest organization founded in 1990. Poverty & Race in America includes over six-dozen works originally published between mid-2001 and 2005, many of which have been updated and revised. The contributors represent the best of progressive thought and activism on America's two most salient, and seemingly intractable, domestic problems-race and poverty. Divided into topical sections, this volume considers the issues of race, poverty, housing, education, health, and democracy. Poverty & Race in America is especially concerned with the links between and among these areas, both for purposes of analysis and policy prescriptions. Featuring a foreword by Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., this edited collection will be of great interest to policy makers and human rights activists and hopefully stimulate creative thought and action to bring an end to racism and poverty.

A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty

A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309483980
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 619

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Book Description
The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.

The Other America

The Other America PDF Author: Michael Harrington
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 068482678X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Examines the economic underworld of migrant farm workers, the aged, minority groups, and other economically underprivileged groups.

Unhealthy Cities

Unhealthy Cities PDF Author: Kevin Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136915281
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
The purpose of this book is to show the important role that space and place plays in the health of urban residents, particularly those living in high poverty ghettos. The book brings together research and writing from a variety of disciplines to demonstrate the health costs of being poor in America’s cities. Both authors are committed to raising awareness of structural factors that promote poverty and injustice in a society that proclaims its commitment to equality of opportunity. Our health is often dramatically affected by where we live; some parts of the city seem to be designed to make people sick. The book is intended for students and professionals in urban sociology, medical sociology, public health, and community planning.

The Hidden Cost of Being African American

The Hidden Cost of Being African American PDF Author: Thomas M. Shapiro
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195151473
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Over the past three decades, racial prejudice in America has declined significantly and many African American families have seen a steady rise in employment and annual income. But alongside these encouraging signs, Thomas Shapiro argues in The Hidden Cost of Being African American, fundamental levels of racial inequality persist, particularly in the area of asset accumulation--inheritance, savings accounts, stocks, bonds, home equity, and other investments-. Shapiro reveals how the lack of these family assets along with continuing racial discrimination in crucial areas like homeownership dramatically impact the everyday lives of many black families, reversing gains earned in schools and on jobs, and perpetuating the cycle of poverty in which far too many find themselves trapped. Shapiro uses a combination of in-depth interviews with almost 200 families from Los Angeles, Boston, and St. Louis, and national survey data with 10,000 families to show how racial inequality is transmitted across generations. We see how those families with private wealth are able to move up from generation to generation, relocating to safer communities with better schools and passing along the accompanying advantages to their children. At the same time those without significant wealth remain trapped in communities that don't allow them to move up, no matter how hard they work. Shapiro challenges white middle class families to consider how the privileges that wealth brings not only improve their own chances but also hold back people who don't have them. This "wealthfare" is a legacy of inequality that, if unchanged, will project social injustice far into the future. Showing that over half of black families fall below the asset poverty line at the beginning of the new century, The Hidden Cost of Being African American will challenge all Americans to reconsider what must be done to end racial inequality.

Challenges to Equality

Challenges to Equality PDF Author: Jean M Hartman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131529155X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 489

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Book Description
Artioles and symposia on major controversial social issues: integration and civil rights; President Clinton's recent race initiative; poverty; education; the environment; democratic participation; disability rights; corporate welfare; and others. The range of contributors is wide, and includes Julian Bond, Herbert Gans, James Loewen, Jonathan Kozol, Manning Marable, Howard Zinn, Benjamin DeMott, Frances Fox Piven, and Marian Wright Edelman.

Why Americans Hate Welfare

Why Americans Hate Welfare PDF Author: Martin Gilens
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226293661
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Tackling one of the most volatile issues in contemporary politics, Martin Gilens's work punctures myths and misconceptions about welfare policy, public opinion, and the role of the media in both. Why Americans Hate Welfare shows that the public's views on welfare are a complex mixture of cynicism and compassion; misinformed and racially charged, they nevertheless reflect both a distrust of welfare recipients and a desire to do more to help the "deserving" poor. "With one out of five children currently living in poverty and more than 100,000 families with children now homeless, Gilens's book is must reading if you want to understand how the mainstream media have helped justify, and even produce, this state of affairs." —Susan Douglas, The Progressive "Gilens's well-written and logically developed argument deserves to be taken seriously." —Choice "A provocative analysis of American attitudes towards 'welfare.'. . . [Gilens] shows how racial stereotypes, not white self-interest or anti-statism, lie at the root of opposition to welfare programs." -Library Journal

Double Exposure

Double Exposure PDF Author: Chester W. Hartman
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
ISBN: 9781563249617
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
A compilation of 41 article reprints from the bi-monthly newsletter of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council (PRRAC), representing a comprehensive overview of US race relations. The activists and scholars contributing to the collection examine the points of conflict most affecting the present state and future of civil rights, thoroughly developing topics in the international dynamics of race, the impacts of racial and ethnic categories, immigration issues affecting African Americans and Latinos, "American apartheid" defined as the underclass, debates in multiculturalism, controversies surrounding affirmative action, and the very real economic disparities facing people of color. Includes quizzes (and answers) from World Hunger Year, and a preface written by Julian Bond. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR