SUNY series, The New Inequalities – serie

This book explores how the recent restructuring of farming and industry has affected economic and social equality in the United States. The author explains how the farm sector has undergone a dramatic restructuring with profound effects. Moderate-size family farms, the mainstay of American agriculture, have declined during the postwar period and are now under severe financial stress. Large-scale industrialized farms - "the factories in the field," often run by corporations - continue to expand their share of agricultural sales while small farms operated on a part-time basis appear to be replacing traditional family farming. Lobao shows that public concern about farm restructuring is indeed warranted and that the nation now appears to be losing its most beneficial farms as well as industries. While local and regional social and economic forces and state policy can be brought to bear on these trends, Lobao particulary focuses on how community empowerment and broad-based political coalitions offer the most promise for fundamental change.

How political boundaries shape residential segregation and fracture America's metropolitan communities.Political boundaries do more than define the limits of cities and suburbs, they shape where people live, whom they live among, and how metropolitan communities become divided.In The Fractured Metropolis, Gregory R. Weiher develops an information-based theory of metropolitan fragmentation to explain how political institutions and jurisdictional boundaries influence patterns of residential segregation. Drawing on urban politics, political behavior, and theories of population sorting, Weiher demonstrates how individual preferences, information, and boundary configurations interact to produce persistent patterns of racial and social separation.Through theoretical analysis and a detailed case study of Richmond Heights, Missouri, Weiher reveals the often-overlooked political forces behind metropolitan segregation. His innovative approach places political boundaries at the center of the explanation for urban fragmentation, offering a compelling new perspective on the relationship between local government, residential choice, and the structure of American metropolitan areas.The Fractured Metropolis provides an original and important contribution to the study of urban politics, metropolitan governance, and residential segregation.

This book provides a new answer to the question, "Why do people use heroin and other street drugs?" Drawing upon a growing body of studies of drug users conducted by sociologists and anthropologists, it attempts to integrate their findings into a theoretically unified sociocultural explanation of heroin use. The theory, which draws heavily upon the insights of symbolic interactionist and role theory, posits that there is a street subculture of heroin users. The chief role in this subculture - the street addict role - becomes a blueprint for living for many heroin users. Addicts are heavily committed to this role and organize their behavior and self-identification around it. From this basic starting point, the theory explains how persons become and remain addicts and how they may eventually give up addictive behavior.

Capital and Communities in Black and White explores the problems created by global economic restructuring, the decline of inner city neighborhoods, and the heightened racial conflicts in the United States.

This is a story of heroic and articulate individuals who were able to defy overwhelming odds and build affordable housing in the South Bronx. It is about the process of teaching citizens in a low-income neighborhood how to participate in public life.Very little is written about the catastrophic and precipitous collapse of the South Bronx, although its fate is universally cited as emblematic of urban hopelessness. This inquiry focuses on community organizers who are sifting through the wreckage and making progress in battling an inept municipal government and the centrifugal forces of decay. The locus is a coalition of forty minority congregations, who battled the city of New York for vacant land in order to build owner-occupied row houses. This is a study of how to educate adults in a democracy to find their voice and wield the power that is inherent in large numbers of organized citizens.

Evaluates drug and alcohol abuse treatment systems and their effects on individual alcohol and drug abusers.During the 1990s, in response to the multi-faceted phenomenon of substance abuse, the federal government's Center for Substance Abuse Treatment funded the Target Cities project in nineteen U.S. cities. This volume evaluates how the Target Cities project affected both treatment systems and individuals with drug and alcohol problems. In each city, programs were established to evaluate the impact of these substances on an individual's mental and physical health, housing, family relationships, and involvement with the criminal justice system. A brief summary of the evolution of national perceptions of drug and alcohol problems is followed by a description of the project, its participants, the process of entering treatment, an organizational analysis of the project's many components, participant satisfaction and adjustment, and the implications of the research findings for policy makers and treatment personnel.

Fifty years ago the quality of life in the 13 states of the Old South was judged to be among the lowest in the country. A lack of industrial development and the pervasiveness of a sharecropping system of agricultural production combined to keep the South mired in the backwaters of the American economy. Over the past five decades, however, the South has moved to the forefront as an area of economic growth. The authors show that significant improvements have taken place almost entirely in and around the major cities. Rural areas-especially those with a high percentage of blacks -remain saddled with an economic base dominated almost entirely by slow growing, stagnating, and declining industries.The uneven development of the region is the result of a set of industrial policies in which communities attempt to lure prospective employers with lucrative business incentive packages. Guarantees of cheap, unorganized labor, tax holidays and giveaways of land and buildings are some of the 'chips' community leaders use in this high stakes game. Rural communities are often caught in bidding wars among themselves in which they are forced to offer even more lucrative incentives and in the process reallocate resources away from needed human services. Consequently, Falk and Lyson target the need for a national industrial policy that will bring some order to the industrial recruitment process.

This book examines the work experiences of twenty-five young men and women in their first jobs following high school. The case studies profiled here describe in detail the process of young workers becoming established in our society. The workplaces in which Kathryn M. Borman and her colleagues spent full shifts once a month for over a year were the locales for young workers' first "real" jobs-jobs they held for more than six months and viewed as a means of entree to adult responsibilities.This study is one of the first to provide an intimate picture of the daily work lives of young factory workers, bank clerks, health spa employees and others who hold jobs in the youth labor market. How jobs provide opportunities for some and hold little hope for advancement for most is vividly described. How employers can improve working conditions for their young employees-especially young women-is clearly apparent in this analysis of the workplace as a "democratic community." Sociologists and others in the fields of education, labor market economics, women's studies, and the anthropology of work will find this volume important reading.

This book provides a new answer to the question, "Why do people use heroin and other street drugs?" Drawing upon a growing body of studies of drug users conducted by sociologists and anthropologists, it attempts to integrate their findings into a theoretically unified sociocultural explanation of heroin use. The theory, which draws heavily upon the insights of symbolic interactionist and role theory, posits that there is a street subculture of heroin users. The chief role in this subculture - the street addict role - becomes a blueprint for living for many heroin users. Addicts are heavily committed to this role and organize their behavior and self-identification around it. From this basic starting point, the theory explains how persons become and remain addicts and how they may eventually give up addictive behavior.

Arguing that a new form of industrial organization is generating new patterns of inequality, the authors explore the relationship between growth in the high-tech sector and trends in inequality. While considering the promise of high-tech industries in light of the realities of high-tech work, the authors report considerable unevenness in the high-tech sector. Some high-tech industries fulfill optimistic expectations, but others are in decline. In some high-tech industries, work is organized in ways that generate inequality along gender, racial, and ethnic lines.The authors link these contrasts to different strategies of flexible production. Building upon the distinction between static flexibility, in which harsh measures are taken to control costs, and dynamic flexibility, in which production processes are constantly adapted to market conditions, they conclude that the most innovative and successful high-tech industries are those employing dynamic flexibility. Expansion of dynamically flexible production strategies is essential if high-tech industries are to fulfill their promise.

Technocracy, loosely defined, is "rule by experts." Technocracy at Work focuses on the organizational dimensions and aspects of technocracy.Substantial sociological literatures have analyzed contemporary changes in factories, bureaucracies, and professional organizations. What has not been well investigated is the interrelatedness of these changes and the emergence of technocracy in the workplace. This book fills this gap and analyzes the social and political implications of technocracy, in both particular work organizations as well as the world-wide technocratic system, so as to inform future democratic debate.

A group of renowned sociological theorists analyze why the attempts to make sociological theory formal in the 1960s and early 1970s failed. This becomes not only an unusual and interesting analysis in the sociology of knowledge, but several of the articles move to the level of analyzing the entire discipline, explaining why positivism did not take hold and what are the distinctive characteristics of sociology as a discipline. Anyone interested in sociology as a discipline and more specifically sociological theory will find interesting analytical models.

Through an analysis of national data and detailed case studies, From Combines to Computers examines how the transition to a service economy is playing out for rural America. It answers two important questions: Will services fill the gap left by lost farming, manufacturing, and mining jobs? And will services stabilize, even revitalize, rural areas? Glasmeier and Howland document the intraregional spatial patterns and trends of services in the national economy, compare services in urban and rural communities, and identify the potential and limitations of rural development strategies based on services. In particular, they document the growing dominance of branch plants, the displacement of "mom-and-pop" enterprises, and the declining access to services for residents in the least populated rural areas. The authors conclude that services are unlikely to be the basis of widespread sustainable development unless policies are designed to help firms and communities compete successfully in an increasingly global and information-based economy

Asks how and with what measure of success women and minorities fare in comparison with white males in American professions.By asking how and with what measure of success, women and minorities fare in comparison to whites in American professions, this book provides original, up-to-date analyses of the fame and fortune of newcomers in professional fields.Each chapter examines gender and/or racial differences in patterns of segregation and discrimination, career paths, and labor market outcomes in particular professions from a comparative, historical perspective. In so doing, the experiences of educated women and minorities are linked to the broader field of sociology of occupations and professions. Women and Minorities in American Professions unravels complexities in the process of career advancement in white-collar professions and offers comprehensive and interdisciplinary coverage of career achievements and issues for women and minority professionals, including theories of inequality, analyses of the impact of demographic shifts, deindustrialization, and policy changes.

This diverse collection rethinks and reinvigorates the field of labor process.While paying tribute to Harry Braverman for launching the research field known as the labor process, this book neither eulogizes nor castigates his work. Rather, it takes stock of the field, showing its blend of qualitative and quantitative methodologies and revealing its diverse contributions to the sociology of work, organizations, and stratification. Both U.S. and British authors use this venue as an opportunity to rethink and reinvigorate the labor process field, yet they maintain an intellectual commitment to the spirit with which Braverman wrote his work. They focus on aspects central to the labor process perspective, including management strategies, technology, innovations in the workplace, the value of labor, and control and resistance.Contributors include Beverly H. Burris, Larry Christiansen, David Gartman, James A. Geschwender, Laura E. Geschwender, Joan Greenbaum, Larry Isaac, Philip Kraft, Jacki Krasas Rogers, Chris Smith, Thomas L. Steiger, Paul Thompson, and Mark Wardell.

A case study of Milwaukee, Wisconsin exploring how lending practices and access to capital are shaped by race.Contrary to conventional wisdom, green is not the only color that matters to lenders. This case study of Milwaukee, Wisconsin-a fairly typical urban area that has experienced systematic disinvestment and a budding reinvestment movement-demonstrates the continuing significance of race in determining who gets home mortgage and small business loans. Confirming the ongoing role of politics in both nurturing urban reinvestment and fueling a backlash by financial institutions, Color and Money offers critical policy recommendations for increasing access to capital in central city communities and for racial minorities throughout the nation's metropolitan areas.

Evaluates drug and alcohol abuse treatment systems and their effects on individual alcohol and drug abusers.During the 1990s, in response to the multi-faceted phenomenon of substance abuse, the federal government's Center for Substance Abuse Treatment funded the Target Cities project in nineteen U.S. cities. This volume evaluates how the Target Cities project affected both treatment systems and individuals with drug and alcohol problems. In each city, programs were established to evaluate the impact of these substances on an individual's mental and physical health, housing, family relationships, and involvement with the criminal justice system. A brief summary of the evolution of national perceptions of drug and alcohol problems is followed by a description of the project, its participants, the process of entering treatment, an organizational analysis of the project's many components, participant satisfaction and adjustment, and the implications of the research findings for policy makers and treatment personnel.

An overview and critical appraisal of the work of influential sociologist and public intellectual William Julius Wilson.Race, Class, and the Postindustrial City thoroughly explores the scholarship of William Julius Wilson, one of the nation's leading sociologists and public intellectuals, and the controversies surrounding his work. In addressing the connection between postindustrial cities and changing race relations, the author, who is not related to William Julius Wilson, shows how Wilson has synthesized competing theories of race relations, urban sociology, and public policy into a refocused liberal analysis of postindustrial America. Combining intellectual biography, the sociology of knowledge, and theoretical analyses of sociological debates relevant to African Americans, this book provides both appraisal and critique, ultimately assessing Wilson's contribution to the sociological canon.

An overview and critical appraisal of the work of influential sociologist and public intellectual William Julius Wilson.Race, Class, and the Postindustrial City thoroughly explores the scholarship of William Julius Wilson, one of the nation's leading sociologists and public intellectuals, and the controversies surrounding his work. In addressing the connection between postindustrial cities and changing race relations, the author, who is not related to William Julius Wilson, shows how Wilson has synthesized competing theories of race relations, urban sociology, and public policy into a refocused liberal analysis of postindustrial America. Combining intellectual biography, the sociology of knowledge, and theoretical analyses of sociological debates relevant to African Americans, this book provides both appraisal and critique, ultimately assessing Wilson's contribution to the sociological canon.

Looks at the daily lives of poor people to demonstrate that the poor pay more than others, by both monetary and other measures, to meet basic needs.While the negative effects of urban poverty are well documented, the everyday experiences of urban residents are often absent or secondary in urban studies research. The Cost of Being Poor rectifies this problem by examining both the noneconomic and the often-overlooked economic costs faced by residents of poor urban neighborhoods in Gary, Indiana. Using census, regional, and local data, and in-depth interviews with the residents of Gary, Sandra L. Barnes argues that many people incur costs resulting from the dual dilemma of being poor and residing in a poor urban area. She explores how factors such as race/ethnicity, neighborhood type, and location influence residents' views, coping strategies, and unconventional approaches toward making ends meet. Well written and accessible, this study of Gary's poor urban neighborhoods offers broad findings that apply to other similarly impoverished Rust Belt cities.