The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America

by Alan Mallach

Overview

Who really benefits from urban revival? Cities, from trendy coastal areas to the nation’s heartland, are seeing levels of growth beyond the wildest visions of only a few decades ago. But vast areas in the same cities house thousands of people living in poverty who see little or no new hope or opportunity. Even as cities revive, they are becoming more unequal and more segregated. What does this mean for these cities—and the people who live in them?

In The Divided City, urban practitioner and scholar Alan Mallach shows us what has happened over the past 15 to 20 years in industrial cities like Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland, and Baltimore, as they have undergone unprecedented, unexpected revival. He draws from his decades of experience working in America’s cities, and pulls in insightful research and data, to spotlight these changes while placing them in their larger economic, social, and political context. Mallach explores the pervasive significance of race in American cities and looks closely at the successes and failures of city governments, nonprofit entities, and citizens as they have tried to address the challenges of change.

The Divided City offers strategies to foster greater equality and opportunity. Mallach makes a compelling case that these strategies must be local in addition to being concrete and focusing on people’s needs—education, jobs, housing and quality of life. Change, he argues, will come city by city, not through national plans or utopian schemes.

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive, grounded picture of the transformation of America’s older industrial cities. It is neither a dystopian narrative nor a one-sided "the cities are back" story, but a balanced picture rooted in the nitty-gritty reality of these cities. The Divided City is imperative for anyone who cares about cities and who wants to understand how to make today’s urban revival work for everyone. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610917810
Publisher:	Island Press
Publication date:	06/12/2018
Edition description:	None
Pages:	344
Sales rank:	620,376
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Alan Mallach is a senior fellow at the Center for Community Progress in Washington DC. A city planner, advocate and writer, he is widely known for his work on housing, economic development, and urban revitalization. A former director of housing & economic development in Trenton, New Jersey, and a former non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, he teaches in the graduate city planning program at Pratt Institute. 
 

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments x

Introduction: Revival and Inequality 1

Chapter 1 The Rise and Fall of the American Industrial City 13

Chapter 2 Millennials, Immigrants, and the Shrinking Middle Class 33

Chapter 3 From Factories to "Eds and Meds" 49

Chapter 4 Race, Poverty, and Real Estate 75

Chapter 5 Gentrification and Its Discontents 97

Chapter 6 Sliding Downhill: The Other Side of Neighborhood Change 123

Chapter 7 The Other Postindustrial America: Small Cities, Mill Towns, and Struggling Suburbs 145

Chapter 8 Empty Houses and Distressed Neighborhoods: Confronting the Challenge of Place 173

Chapter 9 Jobs and Education: The Struggle to Escape the Poverty Trap 203

Chapter 10 Power and Politics: Finding the Will to Change 235

Chapter 11 A Path to Inclusion and Opportunity 255

References 293

About the Author 315

Index 317

Editorial Reviews

04/02/2018
Mallach (Bringing Buildings Back) digs into the dark side of America’s urban revival in this uneven analysis of the forces reshaping “legacy” cities—the Clevelands, Milwaukees, and Buffalos of the heartland, formerly industrial cities hollowed out by suburbanization and white flight in the 1960s and ’70s—rather than the major coastal cities that have received the most attention from others investigating urban renewal. Mallach describes how gentrifying areas of legacy cities have attracted an influx of college graduates with the skills to thrive in the postindustrial knowledge economy, who draw trendy coffee shops and revamp neighborhoods around anchor institutions such as universities. At the same time, he argues, middle-class and poor neighborhoods in the same cities are sliding downhill, buffeted by the subprime mortgage crisis of the 2000s, structural economic changes, and the legacies of racial segregation. For every gentrifying neighborhood like Baltimore’s Fell’s Point or St. Louis’s Washington Avenue, Mallach writes, many more are falling into a cycle of physical deterioration, out-migration, and abandonment. Mallach points to localized infrastructure spending, job creation, and education as possible solutions to this urban crisis. While the book’s subject matter is timely, it relies heavily on synthesizing other authors’ arguments, resulting in an unfocused and somewhat derivative analysis of the issues confronting cities. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"The Divided City interrogates challenging topics with insight and nuance....[It] presents an informative analysis of postindustrial American cities. Mallach starts with a thorough history of urban manufacturing economies and uses relevant data to describe how and why these cities’ neighborhoods are changing, both for good and bad. He details how race and class are fundamentally linked to which neighborhoods are changing and who is affected, and points to successful examples from cities that are working to ensure more equitable growth. This is a worthy topic, and Mallach demonstrates himself a capable narrator and a persuasive advocate."

Carolina Planning Journal

"The Divided City makes important contributions towards understanding both gentrification and neighborhood decline....[It]is one of the three most important books on cities that I have read in recent years."

Housing Studies

"Picks apart the slow progress in the U.S.'s post-industrial (or 'legacy') cities, and finds that by and large, it's leaving a large portion, mainly low-income and nonwhite, of the population behind."

Fast Company

"Always a master teacher, Mallach helps us understand why today's city comeback is so limited and, most importantly, shares optimism and concrete strategies for how cities can chart a new path of equitable development and inclusive prosperity."

Angela Glover Blackwell

"A cogent analysis of the current state of play of the nation's urban challenges and opportunities, and will give anyone who thinks about cities a wealth of new information, a powerful perspective on cities and neighborhood change, and some inspirational words."

City Observatory

"Deeply researched survey of the dual processes of revival and decline in American cities large and small… certain chapters, particularly one on gentrification, captivate."

Booklist

"The Divided City is a must-read. Focusing on the often overlooked Rust Belt region, Mallach counters the dominant narrative of the post-industrial, downtown revitalization happening across U.S. cities by taking an in depth look at the many areas that are seeing the opposite."

Archinect

"The Divided City is a scintillating review of an urban renaissance throughout some fascinating and diverse cities in America....The Divided City avoids the pitfalls of recommending what the author believes is a single, cure-all solution for urban ailments. Mallach allows readers to make assessments of their surroundings, diagnose their surroundings, and make informed decisions."

Journal of the American Planning Association

"Compelling...valuable."

Tulsa Book Review

"This important new book is a must-read for anyone working to change the course of urban American today, perhaps in Detroit most of all."

Detroit Free Press

"Alan Mallach has written a thought-provoking book that tells the story of many forgotten communities across America. He digs deep and not only highlights past failures, but future opportunities to help breathe life back into these places. This book is an important read for anyone who cares about bettering the community they live in."

Congressman Dan Kildee

"Prudent, deeply learned...book."

American Prospect

"Timely...Mallach...offers a cogent, data-driven analysis of urban polarization, how we got here, and what it will take to create inclusive cities that work for all."

Shelterforce

"Alan Mallach—master storyteller, historian, and policy wonk—offers a thorough analysis of the decline of America's legacy cities and the current challenges that they face. He then proposes an interesting future vision for well-governed, resilient places that offer high quality of life and broad-based opportunity for all residents."

George McCarthy

"Alan Mallach’s The Divided City is the best and most relevant book written on urban planning and policy in post-industrial cities in the 21st century...[It] is not only packed with information and ideas, but is well-written, enjoyable, and engaging....[it] provides a thorough, nuanced, and much-needed discussion about race and concentrated poverty...vitally important..useful to practitioners, academics, and citizens...a classic on urban planning and policy."

Cleveland Scene

"In The Divided City, Alan Mallach expertly charts the decline of America's industrial cities, and explores what has led to their unexpected, and at times unequal, resurgence. By looking at cases across the country—from Detroit to Pittsburgh to Baltimore, and more—Mallach paints a complicated picture of urban inequality in the United States and examines its many causes and manifestations, including its disproportionate impact on communities of color. This book is an essential read for anyone who wants to understand how the forces of structural inequality shape the cities we know and love, and what tools we have as policy makers, nonprofits, and residents to make our cities more just, equal places to live."

Darren Walker

"Picks apart the slow progress in the U.S.'s post-industrial (or 'legacy') cities, and finds that by and large, it's leaving a large portion, mainly low-income and nonwhite, of the population behind."

Fast Company

"Deeply researched survey of the dual processes of revival and decline in American cities large and small… certain chapters, particularly one on gentrification, captivate."

Booklist