A sweeping and eye-opening study of wealth inequality and the
dismantling of local government in four working-class US cities
that passionately argues for reinvestment in people-centered
leadership and offers "a welcome reminder of what government can
accomplish if given the chance" (San Francisco Chronicle). 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
this "astute and powerful vision for improving America" (Publishers
Weekly), 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 shows
that "if we learn to save our towns, we will also be learning to
save ourselves" (The New York Times Book Review).
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