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Despite today's booming economy, secure work and upward mobility remain out of reach for many central-city residents. Urban Inequalitypresents an authoritative new look at the racial and economic divisions that continue to beset our nation's cities. Drawing upon a landmark survey of employers and households in four U.S. metropolises, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles, the study links both sides of the labor market, inquiring into the job requirements and hiring procedures of employers, as well as the skills, housing situation, and job search strategies of workers. Using this wealth of evidence, the authors discuss the merits of rival explanations of urban inequality. Do racial minorities lack the skills and education demanded by employers in today's global economy? Have the jobs best matched to the skills of inner-city workers moved to outlying suburbs? Or is inequality the result of racial discrimination in hiring, pay, and housing? Each of these explanations may provide part of the story, and the authors shed new light on the links between labor market disadvantage, residential segregation, and exclusionary racial attitudes.
In each of the four cities, old industries have declined and new commercial centers have sprung up outside the traditional city limits, while new immigrant groups have entered all levels of the labor market. Despite these transformations, longstanding hostilities and lines of segregation between racial and ethnic communities are still apparent in each city. This book reveals how the disadvantaged position of many minority workers is compounded by racial antipathies and stereotypes that count against them in their search for housing and jobs.
Until now, there has been little agreement on the sources of urban disadvantage and no convincing way of adjudicating between rival theories. Urban Inequality aims to advance our understanding of the causes of urban inequality as a first step toward ensuring that the nation's cities can prosper in the future without leaving their minority residents further behind.
"For the first time, Urban Inequality brings together solid evidence on the intersection effects of skills, job availability, geographic segregation, and racism on the socioeconomic outcomes of American minority groups. This landmark study should quickly become a classic, and should inform discussions about public policy for years to come."
--David O. Sears, professor of psychology and political science, UCLA
"This important book investigates urban inequality by looking in detail at the barriers of race, gender, and class in the United States. The team of leading scholars clearly shows us how the search for decent housing, a living wage job, or simply walking down the street differs dramatically between the urban haves and have-nots. Urban Inequality belongs on the bookshelves of mayors, community organizers, and advocates."
--Hugh B. Price, president and CEO, National Urban League
"W.E.B. DuBois said that the problem of the twentieth century would be the color line. How sad that we enter the twenty-first century with a racial hierarchy still intact, putting those of African descent at the bottom. But how encouraging that an interdisciplinary team has taken this comprehensive look at many ofthe factors holding the racial hierarchy in place. Urban Inequality and the larger Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality are major accomplishments."
--Paula England, professor of sociology and director, Women's Studies and the Alice Paul Research Center, University of Pennsylvania
"This is an important volume. Based on careful analyses of rich sources of original data, the authors of the various chapters in Urban Inequalityprovide fresh insights on the interlocking factors that generate and sustain enequality in our nation's metropolises. I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking a comprehensive understanding of the urban social and economic divide."
--William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University.
"The Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality is one of the most innovative and important survey research projects of the 1990s. It moves simultaneously across disciplinary, geographic, and racial boundaries; it extends the range of behavioral social science into structures and cultures. This collection shows off the breadth, flexibility, and substantive value of the Multi-City data when they are in the hands of people who are maong out best analysts."
--Jennifer Hochschild, professor of government and Afro-American studies, Harvard University.
ALICE O'CONNOR is associate professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
CHRIS TILLY is University Professor of Regional Economic and Social Development at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
LAWRENCE D. BOBO is professor of sociology and Afro-American studies at Harvard University.
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