The Fight to Save the Town, Michelle Wilde Anderson
The Fight to Save the Town, Michelle Wilde Anderson
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The Fight to Save the Town
Reimagining Discarded America

Author: Michelle Wilde Anderson

Narrator: Jean Ann Douglass

Unabridged: 12 hr 3 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/21/2022


Synopsis

A sweeping and eye-opening study of wealth inequality and the dismantling of local government in four working-class US cities that passionately argues for reinvestment in people-centered leadership and offers “a welcome reminder of what government can accomplish if given the chance” (San Francisco Chronicle).

Decades of cuts to local government amidst rising concentrations of poverty have wreaked havoc on communities left behind by the modern economy. Some of these discarded places are rural. Others are big cities, small cities, or historic suburbs. Some vote blue, others red. Some are the most diverse communities in America, while others are nearly all white, all Latino, or all Black. All are routinely trashed by outsiders for their poverty and their politics. Mostly, their governments are just broke. Forty years after the anti-tax revolution began protecting wealthy taxpayers and their cities, our high-poverty cities and counties have run out of services to cut, properties to sell, bills to defer, and risky loans to take.

In this “astute and powerful vision for improving America” (Publishers Weekly), urban law expert and author Michelle Wilde Anderson offers unsparing, humanistic portraits of the hardships left behind in four such places. But this book is not a eulogy or a lament. Instead, Anderson travels to four blue-collar communities that are poor, broke, and progressing. Networks of leaders and residents in these places are facing down some of the hardest challenges in American poverty today. In Stockton, California, locals are finding ways, beyond the police department, to reduce gun violence and treat the trauma it leaves behind. In Josephine County, Oregon, community leaders have enacted new taxes to support basic services in a rural area with fiercely anti-government politics. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, leaders are figuring out how to improve job security and wages in an era of backbreaking poverty for the working class. And a social movement in Detroit, Michigan, is pioneering ways to stabilize low-income housing after a wave of foreclosures and housing loss.

Our smallest governments shape people’s safety, comfort, and life chances. For decades, these governments have no longer just reflected inequality—they have helped drive it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Anderson shows that “if we learn to save our towns, we will also be learning to save ourselves” (The New York Times Book Review).

About Michelle Wilde Anderson

Michelle Wilde Anderson is a professor of property, local government, and environmental justice at Stanford Law School. Her work has appeared in The New York TimesLos Angeles TimesChicago TribuneYale Law Journal, and other publications.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Noah on December 09, 2022

What an odd book. Anderson, by her own account, set out to write a scholarly treatment of cities facing broad poverty, in a range of economic contexts (from rural Oregon to Detroit), and then decided while doing the research and reporting, that the true story was the bottom-up organizing that is nec......more

Goodreads review by Don on September 05, 2022

Being a native Detroiter, I was curious if this would be yet another outsider’s, “Ain’t it Awful” version of my favorite city. I was also curious of what Stockton, CA, Lawerence, MA and Josephine county, OR, could have in common with Detroit. Michelle Wilde Anderson does a thorough analysis of how a......more

Goodreads review by Chris on March 13, 2023

Amazing book about community economic development! This book takes a deep dive into four case studies of urban areas that experienced immense hardships and the people and organizations who helped them redevelop from the ground up. The author provides great insights into the causes of hardships and p......more

Goodreads review by Emily on December 20, 2022

I lived in one of the areas described in the book (which is why I picked it up) and she just didn't hit the mark, making me distrust her accounts of the other places as well. The book is written very academically, which I don't mind, but in this case I know there is a treasure trove of stories that......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on November 25, 2022

Interesting read, but I was hoping for more details on what could be done at scale to help. The descriptions of the problems, and some of the causes is very good. Maybe every location needs its own solution. I still would have liked a little more on the how of the solutions instead of what and the w......more