Originally published in 1998, Neighbourhood Jobs, Race, and Skills argues that race is a powerful and persistent barrier to employment. Analysing existing literature, this book outlines how racial discrimination in hiring against African Americans appears to remain a contributor to high unemployment rates in black neighbourhoods. The book also discusses how issues such as poor schools and physical and social isolation compound employment problems, as well as changes in policy on skill requirements and the location of jobs. The book argues that combined, this is a major contributor to concentrated urban employment and poverty.

In recent years there has been a large increase in the number of mortgage loans made by lenders specializing in lending to borrowers with imperfect credit histories, especially in the home equity loan market.1 Most "subprime" lenders are mortgage or finance companies, but they can also be thrifts or even banks. Some of the largest subprime lenders are affiliates of banks. Subprime firms typically charge borrowers higher fees and interest rates than "prime" lenders, which include most banks and thrifts as well as many mortgage companies.

In 2007 and 2008, the United States has observed, with some horror, the explosion and collapse of entire segments of the housing market, especially those driven by subprime and alternative or "exotic" home mortgage lending. Foreclosed explains the rise of high-risk lending and why these newer types of loans and their associated regulatory infrastructure failed in substantial ways. Dan Immergluck narrates the boom in subprime and exotic loans, recounting how financial innovations and deregulation facilitated excessive risk-taking, and how these loans have harmed different populations and communities.

Immergluck, who has been working, researching, and writing on issues tied to housing finance and neighborhood change for almost twenty years, has an intimate knowledge of the promotion of homeownership and the history of mortgages in the United States. The changes to the mortgage market over the past fifteen years including the securitization of mortgages and the failure of regulators to maintain control over a much riskier array of mortgage products led, he finds, inexorably to the current crisis.

After describing the development of generally stable and risk-limiting mortgage markets throughout much of the twentieth century, Foreclosed details how federal policy-makers failed to regulate the new high-risk lending markets that arose in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The book also examines federal, state, and local efforts to deal with the mortgage and foreclosure crisis of 2007 and 2008. Immergluck draws upon his wealth of experience to provide an overarching set of principles and a detailed set of policy recommendations for "righting the ship" of U.S. housing finance in ways that will promote affordable yet sustainable homeownership as an option for a broad set of households and communities.

The 2011 paperback edition features a new preface by the author addressing the ongoing global economic crisis and the impact of U.S. financial reform efforts on the mortgage system."