The fight to save the town : reimagining discarded America / Michelle Wilde Anderson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Anderson, Michelle Wilde, author.

Contributor:

Rosengarten Family Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Municipal services--United States.

Municipal services.

Local government--United States.

Local government.

Poverty--United States.

Poverty.

Social problems--Government policy--United States.

Social problems.

Social problems--Government policy.

United States.

Physical Description:

vii, 352 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First Avid Reader Press hardcover edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Avid Reader Press, 2022.

Summary:

Decades of cuts to local government amidst rising concentrations of poverty have wreaked havoc on communities left behind by the modern economy. Some of these discarded places are rural. Others are big cities, small cities, or historic suburbs. Some vote blue, others red. Some are the most diverse communities in America, while others are nearly all white, all Latino, or all Black. All are routinely trashed by outsiders for their poverty and their politics. Mostly, their governments are just broke. Forty years after the anti-tax revolution began protecting wealthy taxpayers and their cities, our high-poverty cities and counties have run out of services to cut, properties to sell, bills to defer, and risky loans to take. In The Fight to Save the Town, urban law expert and author Michelle Wilde Anderson offers unsparing, humanistic portraits of the hardships left behind in four such places. But this book is not a eulogy or a lament. Instead, Anderson travels to four blue-collar communities that are poor, broke, and progressing. Networks of leaders and residents in these places are facing down some of the hardest challenges in American poverty today. In Stockton, California, locals are finding ways, beyond the police department, to reduce gun violence and treat the trauma it leaves behind. In Josephine County, Oregon, community leaders have enacted new taxes to support basic services in a rural area with fiercely anti-government politics. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, leaders are figuring out how to improve job security and wages in an era of backbreaking poverty for the working class. And a social movement in Detroit, Michigan is pioneering ways to stabilize low-income housing after a wave of foreclosures and housing loss. Our smallest governments shape people's safety, comfort, and life chances. For decades, these governments have no longer just reflected inequality--they have helped drive it. But it doesn't have to be that way. Anderson argues that a new generation of local leaders are figuring out how to turn poverty traps back into gateway cities.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: First Broke, Then Faithless

Learning from Four Places

"What Would I Do if I Won?"

Next Generation Gateway Cities

Of Hellholes, Crooks, and Heroes Love and Misery

ch. One "I Won't Give Up On You, Ever"

Stockton, California

City of Ancestors, City of Orphans

"The Air Just Stops"

Mas Tranquila

Facing Trauma

Worthy

A Movement for Open Windows

ch. Two Man in the Arena

Josephine County, Oregon

"Timber!"

Growing Pot in a Hazmat Suit

"This Is Not TV"

"People Can't Live Like That"

Tenth Time Is a Charm "The (w)HOLE"

ch. Three "Marching, Marching, in the Beauty of the Day"

Lawrence, Massachusetts

Under America

Scabs, Welfare Queens, and Criminals

"We've Been Asleep"

Governing "The City of the Damned"

"Everything Else Flows from There"

"We Can't All Be Zoila Gomez"

Believe

ch. Four Do Not Bid

Detroit, Michigan

"City of Homes"

"The Water Is Warm"

Forty-Eight Percent

Fighting Land Loss

Res Miranda Populo

ch. Five Facing Forward

Broken Compacts

"First Who, Then What"

Networks with Unicorns.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages (261-338) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

ISBN:

9781501195983

1501195980

OCLC:

1259049898