The Unheavenly City Revisited
eBook - ePub

The Unheavenly City Revisited

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Unheavenly City Revisited

About this book

Poverty. Illiteracy. Crime. Unemployment. Riots.


Big cities so often appear to have terrible problems, and Americans have a long history of convincing themselves that urban areas are in crises and that the federal government must do something to improve matters.


Edward C. Banfield argues the conventional wisdom is incorrect. In The Unheavenly City Revisited, he presents rigorous analyses showing that “by any conceivable measure of material welfare the present generation of urban Americans is, on the whole, better off than any other large group of people has ever been anywhere.” He furthermore argues that there is little evidence that the billions of dollars of government spending is improving matters. Indeed, well-intended government actions have proved harmful in some instances.


The Unheavenly City Revisited cautions policymakers that their biases may affect their perceptions of America’s metropolitan areas. Improving the lives of people in cities through government action is an exceedingly complex enterprise. Government officials and citizens alike must be realists about what government action can achieve.

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Yes, you can access The Unheavenly City Revisited by Edward C. Banfield in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & Social Policy. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Foreword to the 2025 Edition
  6. Preface to The Unheavenly City Revisited
  7. Preface to The Unheavenly City
  8. 1. Introduction
  9. 2. The Logic of Metropolitan Growth
  10. 3. The Imperatives of Class
  11. 4. Race: Thinking May Make It So
  12. 5. The Problem of Unemployment
  13. 6. Several Kinds of Poverty
  14. 7. Schooling versus Education
  15. 8. Several Kinds of Crime
  16. 9. Rioting Mainly for Fun and Profit
  17. 10. The Future of the Lower Class
  18. 11. What Can Be Done?
  19. 12. The Prospect
  20. Appendix A. Note on the Size of the Social Classes
  21. Appendix B. Select List of Writings Pertaining to The Unheavenly City
  22. Notes
  23. About the Author
  24. Back Cover