San Antonio College Library

"In No Shame in My Game, anthropologist Katherine Newman presents a view of inner-city poverty radically different from that commonly accepted. The all-too-prevalent picture we get of the poor today - in the media, in the political sphere, and in scholarly studies - is of alienated minorities living in big-city ghettos, lacking in values and family structure, criminally inclined, and permanently dependent on government handouts." "What Newman reveals,...

This book is designed to help readers navigate through the vast and rapidly growing literature on poverty in urban America. The major themes, topics, debates, and issues are examined through an analysis of eight basic questions about the nature and problem of urban poverty. After analyzing these issues, Jennings concludes with a brief overview of how public discussions related to poverty in the 1990s are similar to such debates in earlier periods....

Rossi (sociology, U. of Massachusetts, Amherst) provides a comprehensive picture of homelessness in the US today, offers an explanation of its causes, and proposes short- and long-term solutions to the problem. He notes that the homeless of the 1950s and 1960s offer a striking contrast to the contemporary population, which is much younger on average, contains more women, children, and blacks, and receives less income.

A cultural analysis considers the particular challenges of inner city seniors, identifying the historical, personal, and political factors that contribute to the problems being faced by the aged in urban America.

Sudhir Venkatesh takes us into Maquis Park, a poor black neighborhood on Chicago's Southside, to explore the desperate, dangerous, and remarkable ways in which a community survives. We find there an entire world of unregulated, unreported, and untaxed work, a system of living off the books that is daily life in the ghetto. From women who clean houses and prepare lunches for the local hospital to small-scale entrepreneurs like the mechanic who works...

"The Global Report on Human Settlements is the most authoritative and up-to-date assessment of conditions and trends in the world's cities. Written in clear language and supported by informative graphics, case studies and extensive statistical data, it will be an essential tool and reference for researchers, academics, planners, public authorities and civil society organizations around the world."--Jacket.

For the past three decades, the federal government has targeted the poorest areas of American cities with a succession of antipoverty initiatives, yet these urban neighborhoods continue to decline. According to David Rusk, focusing on programs aimed at improving inner-city neighborhoods - playing the "inside game"--Is a losing strategy. Achieving real improvement requires matching the "inside game" with a strong "outside game" of regional strategies...

In 2005 Waverly Duck was called to a town he calls Bristol Hill to serve as an expert witness in the sentencing of drug dealer Jonathan Wilson. Convicted as an accessory to the murder of a federal witness and that of a fellow drug dealer, Jonathan faced the death penalty, and Duck was there to provide evidence that the environment in which Jonathan had grown up mitigated the seriousness of his alleged crimes. Duck exploration led him to Jonathan church,...

In The Unknown City Michelle Fine and Lois Weis offer a groundbreaking, theoretically sophisticated ethnography of the lives of young adults, ages 23 to 35, in two large East Coast cities. Analyzing interviews with hundreds of young people, Fine and Weis provide insights into their startling and often harrowing experiences. A major focus of the book is on the "fractures" in American society: how and why those of different races, ethnicities, and genders...