Although welfare reform is currently the government's top priority, most discussions about the public's responsibility to the poor neglect an informed historical perspective. This important book provides a crucial examination of past attempts, both in this country and abroad, to balance the efforts of private charity and public welfare. The prominent historians in this collection demonstrate how solutions to poverty are functions of culture, religion, and politics, and how social provisions for the poor have evolved across the centuries.

""Poverty Knowledge" is the most important analysis of the evolution of poverty knowledge ever published. Alice O'Connor's book is must reading for those who seek a comprehensive understanding of past and current social science writings on American poverty. Moreover, it provides a new vision that inextricably links the study of poverty to the broader study of political economy. This book will be discussed and debated for many years."--William Julius Wilson, Harvard University

"In this strongly argued, deeply researched, and very well-written book, Alice O'Connor lays bare the narrowness of social 'science' concerning poverty in American life since the progressive era. Neither liberals nor conservatives escape her informed, tough-minded critique."--James T. Patterson, Brown University

"There is nothing like this superb history and assessment of systematic social science concerned with poverty. Written by a historian with uncommon vantages on policy ideas, the book powerfully situates what, and how, we know within the dynamics of ideology, power, and interest that have characterized twentieth-century American liberalism. Richly researched and arrestingly composed, it informs policy history as well as options for the future."--Ira Katznelson, Columbia Univeristy

""Poverty Knowledge" is an insightful and incisive account of poverty research since the nineteenth century. Alice O'Connor's disgust with the use of research to stigmatize the poor comes through powerfully and clearly. Critical history at its best, the book should also be read by sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, economists, and welfare and antipoverty researchers--as well as teachers in thesefields."--Herbert J. Gans, Columbia University

"Alice O'Connor knows more about the social science literature on poverty than any other historian in America. No one has put the whole story together as she has. Her conclusions emerge as nuanced, sophisticated, and sound. Her book is also written with exceptional clarity and grace. It will supercede all other histories of poverty knowledge in the United States that deal with the twentieth century."--Michael Katz, University of Pennsylvania

In this new volume, Michael A. Pagano curates essays focusing on the neighborhood's role in urban policy solutions. The papers emerged from dynamic discussions among policy makers, researchers, public intellectuals, and citizens at the 2014 UIC Urban Forum. As the writers show, the greater the city, the more important its neighborhoods and their distinctions. The topics focus on sustainable capital and societal investments in people and firms at the neighborhood level. Proposed solutions cover a range of possibilities for enhancing the quality of life for individuals, households, and neighborhoods. These include everything from microenterprises to factories; from social spaces for collective and social action to private facilities; from affordable housing and safety to gated communities; and from neighborhood public education to cooperative, charter, and private schools. Contributors: Andy Clarno, Teresa Cordova, Nilda Flores-Gonzalez, Pedro A. Noguera, Alice O'Connor, Mary Pattillo, Janet Smith, Nik Theodore, Elizabeth S. Todd-Breland, Stephanie Truchan, and Rachel Weber.