Stuck in Place: Urban Neighborhoods and the End of Progress toward Racial Equality

by Patrick Sharkey

In the 1960s, many believed that the civil rights movement’s successes would foster a new era of racial equality in America. Four decades later, the degree of racial inequality has barely changed. To understand what went wrong, Patrick Sharkey argues that we have to understand what has happened to African American communities over the last several decades. In Stuck in Place, Sharkey describes how political decisions and social policies have led to severe disinvestment from black neighborhoods, persistent segregation, declining economic opportunities, and a growing link between African American communities and the criminal justice system.
As a result, neighborhood inequality that existed in the 1970s has been passed down to the current generation of African Americans. Some of the most persistent forms of racial inequality, such as gaps in income and test scores, can only be explained by considering the neighborhoods in which black and white families have lived over multiple generations. This multigenerational nature of neighborhood inequality also means that a new kind of urban policy is necessary for our nation’s cities. Sharkey argues for urban policies that have the potential to create transformative and sustained changes in urban communities and the families that live within them, and he outlines a durable urban policy agenda to move in that direction.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, Race, History, Urban Studies, African American, Cities

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Silas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sharkey has an important claim: multi-generational neighborhood poverty has a strong effect on peoples life outcomes that is independent of their own familial circumstance. He does a good job explaining and defending his claim in a clear, digestible way that is not full of sociology jargon. It also seems like this insight is genuinely important to understand when thinking about urban poverty and how to best solve it. However, this is basically what the whole 200 page book is about and he beats you over the head with this idea over, and over, and over again and then gives a very brief set of, somewhat half-hearted, potential solutions at the end. I'm sure that to publish a well-regarded sociology book you have to make your position really clear and defend it a million times but this didn't make the constant repetition any more enjoyable to read.

[Sharlyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe it's because I'm no sociologist, but this book felt incredibly repetitive. The author's thesis is largely and simply that neighborhood disadvantages (his list: economic and racial isolation and segregation, exposure to violence, high unemployment rate, lack of services, etc) are compounded when multiple generations of a family experience the same or similar problems. I think most of us would just think: "Duh." The most insightful parts to me were descriptions of the various federal and local policies that created these urban neighborhoods and the forced recognition that our disinvestment grew from a series of policy choices. There were also some interesting analyses of different mobility programs and a very short description of suggested policies, but it really boils down to making long-term investments in neighborhoods across generations and in many areas instead of simply short-term, piecemeal efforts that are often defunded after a short while.

[Linden Leman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is incredibly informative... I recommend it to anybody who wishes to have a serious understanding of the "problem"... the first step necessary to coming up with the "solution." It's obviously no replacement for real proximity to the everyday barriers Black people face, but will take you as far as books go. NOTE: This is sociology, not fun memoir or manifesto, expect studies and graphs, etc.

[Andrew Razanauskas · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Stuck in Place” almost reads like a textbook — its academic nature made it difficult to follow at times. The messaging is very important, although I was a bit disappointed in the vague conclusions and uncertainty in Sharkey’s proposals for moving forward.

[Eric Bottorff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a model of what good social science looks like. Although not as theoretically imaginative as Robert Sampson's *Great American City*, Sharkey presents a set of theses and carefully and rigorously combs through the empirical data, both qualitative and quantitative, to qualify and evaluate and defend them. Furthermore, his writing is incredibly clear and should be reasonably accessible to those not familiar with the literature on this topic.

Most importantly, this is a major contribution to our understanding of the persistence of racial inequality since the Civil Rights legislation and movements of the 60s. Will definitely be of interest for anyone sympathetic to or working in the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

[Kristina · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a slog and feels poorly organized. While the subject matter is of great interest to me, the data blocks are dense and too much of the word economy is used to say that the reported fact will matter later in another part of the book. The last chapter is devoted to examples of place based strategies, which makes me wonder why there couldn't be more of that some where else in the book. I finished it feeling no more informed than when I started.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was difficult to digest, but well formatted and the content was interesting.

[Polly Callahan]

recommended by Ta-Nehisi Coates