Crossing the Class and Color Lines: From Public Housing to White Suburbia

Rosenbaum, James E., Rubinowitz, Leonard S.

ISBN 10: 0226730891 / ISBN 13: 9780226730899

Editore: University of Chicago Press, 2000

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Crossing the Class and Color Lines: From Public Housing to White Suburbia
• Editore: University of Chicago Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2000
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0226730891
• ISBN 13: 9780226730899
• Rilegatura: Hardcover
• Condizione: Very Good

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

From 1976 to 1998, the Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program moved over 7,000 low-income black families from Chicago's inner city to middle-class white suburbs--the largest and longest-running residential, racial, and economic integration effort in American history. Crossing the Class and Color Lines is the story of that project, from the initial struggles and discomfort of the relocated families to their eventual successes in employment and education--cementing the sociological concept of the "neighborhood effect" and shattering the myth that inner-city blacks cannot escape a "culture of poverty."

"This book's history of Chicago public housing should be required reading for anyone interested in social policy in the United States."--Jens Ludwig, Social Service Review

"[The authors'] work is rightly cited as one of the important precedents in the field. . . . This is a remarkable, unassailable accomplishment and this book is an important record of their scholarly contribution."--John M. Goering, Ethnic and Racial Studies

Product Description

In the United States, it is rare that people of different races and social classes live together in the same housing developments and neighbourhoods. The Gautreaux programme, one of the most innovative and extensive court-ordered desegregation efforts ever, in which thousands of low-income, African-American families voluntarily moved from Chicago's inner city to mostly white, middle-class suburbs, was specifically designed to help redress this problem. This is the story of this unique experiment in racial, social and economic integration that began in 1976 and ended only last year. The book tells of the Gautreaux families' initial discomfort and of the discrimination they felt. Yet it also relates how, against the odds, their lives changed for the better, in employment and education, exploding the notion that poor, inner-city blacks cannot escape the "culture of poverty". Today, with vouchers and certificates replacing public housing, the Gautreaux success story is the most valuable record of the possibilities and limitations of mobility programmes.