The price of paradise : the costs of inequality and a vision for a more equitable America /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Troutt, David Dante, author.
Imprint:New York : New York University Press, [2013]
©2013
Description:vii, 275 pages ; 24 cm
Language:English
Subject:
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/9846920
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9780814760550 (hbk. : alk. paper)
0814760554 (hbk. : alk. paper)
Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-258) and index.
Summary:"Many American communities, especially the working and middle class, are facing chronic problems: fiscal stress, urban decline, environmental sprawl, failing schools, mass incarceration, political isolation, disproportionate foreclosures, and severe public health risks. In The Price of Paradise, David Dante Troutt argues that it is a lack of what he calls 'regional equity' in our local decision making that has led to this looming crisis now facing so many cities and local governments. Unless we adopt policies that take into consideration all class levels, he argues, the underlying inequity affecting poor and middle class communities will permanently limit opportunity for the next generations of Americans. Arguing that there are 'structural flaws' in the American dream, Troutt explores the role that place plays in our thinking and how we have organized our communities to create or deny opportunity. Through a careful presentation of this crisis at the national level and also through on-the-ground observation in communities like Newark, Detroit, Houston, Oakland, and New York City that all face similar hardships, he makes the case that America's tendency to separate into enclaves in urban areas or to sprawl off on one's own in suburbs gravely undermines the American dream. Troutt shows that the tendency to separate also has maintained racial segregation in our cities and towns, itself cementing many barriers for advancement. A profound conversation about America at the crossroads, The Price of Paradise is a multilayered exploration of the legal, economic, and cultural forces that contribute to the squeeze on the middle class, the hidden dangers of growing income and wealth inequality, and environmentally unsustainable growth and consumption patterns"--Provided by publisher.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Troutt (Law and Justice/Rutgers School of Law, Newark; The Importance of Being Dangerous, 2009, etc.) offers a controversial counter to the claim that social spending is an out-of-control government expense. The author writes that "localism," the autonomous local control of suburban communities, has increased costs of education and policing far beyond affordable levels and reinforced the economics of institutional racism. Troutt asks two important questions: "[W]ho really gets the most government subsidies?" and "[W]hy should I live near poor people?" He develops a convincing case that government subsidies are not just handouts to the poor, but in fact have subsidized middle-class lifestyles as well. Since the 1930s, these have been carried out through specially designed loan packages, tax deductions for mortgages and local property taxes, and the construction of the federal highway system. These subsidies have been under attack since the recent financial crisis. Troutt debunks as mere ideology the contention that suburban neighborhoods, considered to exemplify the American dream, have flourished only due to homeowner and community self-sufficiency and autonomy. He shows how, since the 1970s, Supreme Court decisions favoring local autonomy in zoning, land use and education have undermined the gains made by 1960s civil rights reforms. "By 1980," he writes, "localism had trumped the equality principle to reproduce formal segregation but in a non-racial way. For all its benefits, localism has a fatal flaw, narrow parochialismits most destructive aspect." The author believes that subsidized suburban communities and poor, inner-city areas both need common interest solutions like those advocated 50 years ago by Martin Luther King Jr.; they should be based on interdependence instead of separation in economic and political relations. "Ultimately, this book is a rejection of our divisive assumptions, an argument about the profound interdependency of our lives," writes the author. A forcefully presented eye-opener sure to provoke controversy as well as interest.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review