Crossing the Class & Color Lines – From Public Housing to White Suburbia - Softcover

Rubinowitz, Leonard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226730905 ISBN 13: 9780226730905

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2002

Synopsis

In the United States, it is rare that people of different races and social classes live together in the same housing developments and neighbourhoods. The Gautreaux programme, one of the most innovative and extensive court-ordered desegregation efforts ever, in which thousands of low-income, African-American families voluntarily moved from Chicago's inner city to mostly white, middle-class suburbs, was specifically designed to help redress this problem. This is the story of this unique experiment in racial, social and economic integration that began in 1976 and ended only last year. The book tells of the Gautreaux families' initial discomfort and of the discrimination they felt. Yet it also relates how, against the odds, their lives changed for the better, in employment and education, exploding the notion that poor, inner-city blacks cannot escape the "culture of poverty". Today, with vouchers and certificates replacing public housing, the Gautreaux success story is the most valuable record of the possibilities and limitations of mobility programmes.

About this title

About the Author

Leonard S. Rubinowitz is a professor at the Northwestern University School of Law.

James E. Rosenbaum is a professor of sociology, education, and social policy and a faculty fellow of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.

From the Back Cover

The year 2001 saw a partial resurrection of the Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program, an ambitious project that, between 1976 to 1998, moved over 7,000 low-income black families, most from Chicago's inner city to middle-class white suburbs-the largest and longest-running residential, racial, and economic integration effort in American history. Crossing the Class and Color Lines, nominated for the 2001 Robert E. Park Award of the Community and Urban Section of the American Sociological Association, is the story of that project, from the initial struggles and discomfort of the relocated families to their eventual successes in employment and education-a study that cemented the sociological concept of the "neighborhood effect" and shattered the myth that inner-city blacks cannot escape a "culture of poverty."

From the Inside Flap

The year 2001 saw a partial resurrection of the Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program, an ambitious project that, between 1976 to 1998, moved over 7,000 low-income black families, most from Chicago's inner city to middle-class white suburbs-the largest and longest-running residential, racial, and economic integration effort in American history.Crossing the Class and Color Lines, nominated for the 2001 Robert E. Park Award of the Community and Urban Section of the American Sociological Association, is the story of that project, from the initial struggles and discomfort of the relocated families to their eventual successes in employment and education-a study that cemented the sociological concept of the "neighborhood effect" and shattered the myth that inner-city blacks cannot escape a "culture of poverty."

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226730905
• ISBN 13: 9780226730905
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 242