Fragile Neighborhoods
Repairing American Society, One Zip Code at a Time
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
An “essential and engaging ” (Richard Florida) exploration of social decline in America: its true causes and the practical steps each of us can take to combat it, starting with the places we call home.
The neighborhoods we live in impact our lives in so many ways: they determine who we know, what resources and opportunities we have access to, the quality of schools our kids go to, our sense of security and belonging, and even how long we live.
Yet too many of us live in neighborhoods plagued by rising crime, school violence, family disintegration, addiction, alienation, and despair. Even the wealthiest neighborhoods are not immune; while poverty exacerbates these challenges, they exist in zip codes rich and poor, rural and urban, and everything in between.
In Fragile Neighborhoods, fragile states expert Seth D. Kaplan offers a bold new vision for addressing social decline in America, one zip code at a time. By revitalizing our local institutions—and the social ties that knit them together—we can all turn our neighborhoods into places where people and families can thrive.
Readers will meet the innovative individuals and organizations pioneering new approaches to everything from youth mentoring to affordable housing: people like Dreama, a former lawyer whose organization works with local leaders and educators in rural Appalachia to equip young people with the social support they need to succeed in school; and Chris, whose Detroit-based non-profit turns vacant school buildings into community resource hubs.
Along the way, Kaplan offers a set of practical lessons to inspire similar work, reminding us that when change is hyperlocal, everyone has the opportunity to contribute.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kaplan (Human Rights in Thick and Thin Societies), a professor of international studies at John Hopkins University, strays outside his area of expertise—"fragile states"—in this unconvincing analysis of "social poverty" in America. Defining "fragile neighborhoods" as places of "stress, mistrust, frustration, and a sense of insecurity," where people are anxious, depressed, and alienated from one another, Kaplan claims such conditions are the result of social poverty—a dearth of supportive social relations and local institutions—rather than economic poverty. He argues that fragile neighborhoods can be rich or poor, and that governmental support, good jobs, living wages, and wealth-creation opportunities are necessary but insufficient for eradicating social poverty. Kaplan highlights five initiatives he contends are adequately addressing the problem, including Partners for Education's strengthening of learning environments in eastern Kentucky and East Lake Foundation's multipronged efforts to develop mixed-income housing in Atlanta. These "social repairers," as he labels them, utilize bottom-up, collaborative, comprehensive, privately funded, and volunteer-based approaches. Kaplan's tone is hopeful, but would be more persuasive if his recommendations were not cast in such general terms, his examples considered more critically, and his argument more attentive to economic justice. This holds the most appeal for nonprofit leaders in search of motivational advice.