Urban Poverty

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a “provocative and compelling” (NPR) argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The New...

Dr. CJ Patterson returns to her Alabama hometown when her estranged sister, Shelley, is found murdered in the woods. For CJ it means diving headfirst into a painful life she left behind. CJ reluctantly partners with Detective Kevin Braddock, and the complicated romantic history they share is far from over. They soon zero in on Shelley’s abusive ex-boyfriend and a local crime boss who controls the struggling mill village’s illicit enterprises. But anyone is suspect in a town with so many secrets. Even Shelley died with a few of her own.

A New York Times Best Seller "Essential reading for all adults who work with black and brown young people...Filled with exceptional intellectual sophistication and necessary wisdom for the future of education."—Imani Perry, National Book Award Winner author of South To America An award-winning...

From a Harvard scholar and former Obama official, a powerful proposal for curtailing violent crime in America Urban violence is one of the most divisive and allegedly intractable issues of our time. But as Harvard scholar Thomas Abt shows in Bleeding Out, we actually possess all the tools...

"Blacks are 13% but commit half of the crime!" Using statistics, facts, charts, arguments never heard before, and common sense, this book factually challenges many firmly held beliefs, such as “Blacks make up 13% of the population but commit half of the violent crimes.” Offering a comprehensive examination of street crime in America's inner cities, it navigates diverse topics with clarity. Drawing from various disciplines, the author explores how mental illness, systemic racism, black apathy, drugs, family breakdown, American values, and the financial gains from illicit activities fuel ...

From the sprawling barricadas of Lima to the garbage hills of Manila, urbanization has been disconnected from industrialization, even economic growth. Davis portrays a vast humanity warehoused in shantytowns and exiled from the formal world economy. He argues that the rise of this informal urban proletariat is a wholly original development unforeseen by either classical Marxism or neoliberal theory. Are the great slums, as a terrified Victorian middle class once imagined, volcanoes waiting to erupt?

"The People of the Abyss" (1903) is a work by Jack London about life in the East End of London in 1902. He wrote this first-hand account after living in the East End (including the Whitechapel District) for several months, sometimes staying in workhouses or sleeping on the streets. The conditions he experienced and wrote about, were the same as those endured by an estimated 500,000 of the contemporary London poor.

Lady is forced to grow up fast when she and her siblings are abandoned by their drug-addicted mother. Raised by their grandparents, they were taught the values of life and responsibility in Newark, NJ.Her first love, Jungle, introduced her to the streets, love, and every part of the game until his untimely disappearance. Boogie, Reek, and Blackjack look out for Lady as she is forced to survive the escalating violence around her. With the streets saying that Blackjack and his brother Ripper had set Jungle up, Boogie and Reek put together a murderous plot to get revenge. As the bodies stack ...

White Americans have long been comfortable in the assumption that they are the cultural norm. Now that notion is being challenged, as white people wrestle with what it means to be part of a fast-changing, truly multicultural nation. Facing chronic economic insecurity, a popular culture that reflects the nation’s diverse cultural reality, a future in which they will no longer constitute the majority of the population, and with a Black president in the White House, whites are growing anxious.

Piven and Cloward have updated their classic work on the history and function of welfare to cover the American welfare state's massive erosion during the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton years. The authors present a boldly comprehensive, brilliant new theory to explain the comparative underdevelopment of the US welfare state among advanced industrial nations. Their conceptual framework promises to shape the debate within current and future administrations as they attempt to rethink the welfare system and its role in American society.

Victorian Poverty Was Not Chaos. It Was Arithmetic. Beyond the myths of Jack the Ripper and Charles Dickens lies the brutal, mechanical reality of the London Underworld. You’ve read the novels. You’ve walked the gaslit streets in your imagination. But what did survival actually cost in the East End? How much did you pay for eight hours of sleep on a stretched rope? How many calories sustained a workhouse inmate? What did it mean to raise a family inside a single, airless room in a rookery? The stories are familiar. The numbers are not. In The Victorian Rookery: The Economic Reality of ...

What if the story of one country could unlock the secrets of our shared human journey? From the depths of the Amazon to the heights of political upheaval, Brazil is not just a nation—it’s a mirror. A mirror that reflects colonization and resistance, slavery and survival, empire and reinvention. In The History of Brazil, Eleanor Whitcombe invites you into a sweeping, emotionally resonant exploration of a land where contradictions collide and transformation never stops. ✔ Discover how a Portuguese outpost became the seat of a European empire ✔ Uncover the brutal logic behind the ...

It doesn’t take long for Ray Spalding to realise that prison is nothing like an Elvis Presley movie. The warden has no intention of throwing a party and the only bands Ray encounters are gangs of hard men. When an old adversary seeks him out, Ray decides his only chance for survival is escape. Ray’s son, Jesse, is discovering that being on the run in the middle of winter is no fun. With his stamina stretched to the limits, he’s ready to surrender himself to social services. At least that way he can see his girlfriend again. Danny Boy is the man in the middle. He thinks he can break ...

Deshaun James is dying in his sleep, and the only person who seems to know it is his six-year-old son. Night after night, Josiah jolts awake the moment Deshaun stops breathing, screaming his father back to life before silence can finish what poverty, stress, and neglect already started. But no one outside the home sees a little boy trying to save his dad. They see a “troubled” child, a struggling Black family, and a father whose old aggravated assault record makes him easy to judge and even easier to condemn. With eviction closing in and bills swallowing everything Mekayla earns, the ...

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to How the Other Half Lives and learn about the conditions of abject poverty that the residents of the slums of New York at the end of the 19th century had to endure.

A brand new saga from bestselling author AnneMarie Brear! Perfect for the fans of Anna Jacobs and Dilly Court. Orphan, Victoria Carlton is brought up by her uncle to be a lady and make a good marriage. Yet, she is drawn to help the poor families in the slums, much to her family’s disgust. When...

"Haunting, intimate, and beautifully told: a magical debut novel from a writer to watch.” —Emily M. Danforth, national bestselling and award-winning author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post A spellbinding young adult fantasy debut by Riss M. Neilson following three best friends who turn to...

Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption.

Ivor Dennidge had chosen his way of life and planned to stick to it. He had found a perfect work/benefits balance which allowed him to live as he saw fit and avoid the slavery of full-time work. He had everything he needed to enjoy life and an abundance of what he valued most; spare time. This is the story of a day which began in much the same way as the previous 2,878 days of Ivor Dennidge’s post-rat-race existence. A short story of about 9000 words from the author of ‘Northern Dole’.

Coming of Age in the Other America shows that despite overwhelming odds, some disadvantaged urban youth do achieve upward mobility. Drawing from 10 years of fieldwork with parents and children who resided in Baltimore public housing, sociologists Stefanie DeLuca, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, and Kathryn Edin highlight the remarkable resiliency of some of the youth who hailed from the nation's poorest neighborhoods and show how the right public policies might help break the cycle of disadvantage.