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America's Third World |
| Section: BOOK WORLD / REVIEWS |
| Author: Edward S. Shaprio |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 1/1/1997 |
| Size: 2,511 Words, 16,045 Characters |
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WHEN WORK DISAPPEARS
The World of the New Urban Poor
William Julius Wilson
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996
322 pp., $26.00
Of all of America's social problems, none is more tragic or has received as much attention over the past three decades as the condition of America's inner cities. Ever since the Great Society of the 1960s, American cities have been the laboratory of a vast effort by government bureaucrats, academicians, and politicians to promote social and economic uplift. And yet, despite the pouring of tens of billions of dollars into the cities, the urban malady is worse today than thirty years ago, and there seems little prospect for improvement.
When I was growing up in Washington, D.C., during the 1950s, people did not fear taking buses or walking through inner-city neighborhoods at night. These same areas are now drug infested and the scene of frequent drive-by shootings. William Bennett recently remarked that conditions in the cities remind him of those societies to which Christian missionaries traveled in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in order to spread civilization. American visitors to Europe are frequently struck by the difference between their cities and our own. In Europe, it is still fashionable to live and shop in the cities, and they remain relatively safe and vibrant at night. Many American cities, by contrast, are transformed into ghost towns when the sun goes down.
Conditions of blacks in the inner cities are particularly bleak. The statistics on crime, drug addiction, and academic performance are well known. P...
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...drug use, and the mood of dependency and victimization within the ghetto, factories and stores are unlikely to return. Unfortunately, conditions are not likely to improve as long as an emphasis on "personal responsibility" is branded as simplistic and pious. But how contrary to common sense is the suggestion that blacks would benefit if they examined the experience of neighboring Hispanics? vbcrlf
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
comprehensive academic resource that encompasses a broad range of
articles by scholars and experts in the areas of Global Studies,
Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
includes the complete contents since 1986 and continues to publish
a new issue online each month. |
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