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Confronting Suburban Poverty In America
Elizabeth Kneebone
Brookings Institution
May 2013
On Sale: May 20, 2013
160 pages ISBN: 0815723903 EAN: 9780815723905 Kindle: B00CMRW89K Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
It has been nearly a half century since President Lyndon
Johnson declared war on poverty. Back in the 1960s tackling
poverty "in place" meant focusing resources in the inner
city and in rural areas. The suburbs were seen as home to
middle- and upper-class families—affluent commuters and
homeowners looking for good schools and safe communities in
which to raise their kids. But today's America is a very
different place. Poverty is no longer just an urban or rural
problem, but increasingly a suburban
one as well. In Confronting Suburban Poverty in America,
Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube take on the new reality
of metropolitan poverty and opportunity in America. After decades in which suburbs added poor residents at a
faster pace than cities, the 2000s marked a tipping point.
Suburbia is now home to the largest and fastest-growing poor
population in the country and more than half of the
metropolitan poor. However, the antipoverty infrastructure
built over the past several decades does not fit this
rapidly changing geography. As Kneebone and Berube cogently
demonstrate, the solution no longer fits the problem. The spread of suburban poverty has many causes, including
shifts in affordable housing and jobs, population dynamics,
immigration, and a struggling economy. The phenomenon raises
several daunting challenges, such as the need for more (and
better) transportation options, services, and financial
resources. But necessity also produces opportunity—in this
case, the opportunity to rethink and modernize services,
structures, and procedures so that they work in more scaled,
cross-cutting, and resource-efficient
ways to address widespread need. This book embraces that
opportunity. Kneebone and Berube paint a new picture of poverty in
America as well as the best ways
to combat it. Confronting Suburban Poverty in America offers
a series of workable recommendations for public, private,
and nonprofit leaders seeking to modernize poverty
alleviation and community development strategies and connect
residents with economic opportunity. The authors highlight
efforts in metro areas where local leaders are learning how
to do more with less and adjusting their approaches to
address the metropolitan scale of poverty—for example,
integrating services and service delivery, collaborating
across sectors and jurisdictions, and using data-driven and
flexible funding strategies.
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