[URBANTH-L]NEW BOOK: Cracks in the Pavement
Lindsay Wong
lindsay.w at ucpress.edu
Wed Jul 23 12:42:57 EDT 2008
Dear Urbanth-L:
The University of California Press is pleased to announce the publication of:
Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change and Resilience in Poor Neighborhoods
Martín Sánchez-Jankowski is Professor of
Sociology and Director of the Center for Urban
Ethnography at the University of California,
Berkeley. He is author of Islands in the Street:
Gangs and American Urban Society (UC Press),
among other books.
http://go.ucpress.edu/Jankowski
Woven throughout with rich details of everyday
life, this original, on-the-ground study of poor
neighborhoods challenges much prevailing wisdom
about urban poverty, shedding new light on the
people, institutions, and culture in these
communities. Over the course of nearly a decade,
Martín Sánchez-Jankowski immersed himself in life
in neighborhoods in New York and Los Angeles to
investigate how social change and social
preservation transpire among the urban poor.
Looking at five community mainstays-the housing
project, the small grocery store, the barbershop
and the beauty salon, the gang, and the local
high school-he discovered how these institutions
provide a sense of order, continuity, and
stability in places often thought to be chaotic,
disorganized, and disheartened. His provocative
and ground-breaking study provides new data on
urban poverty and also advances a new theory of
how poor neighborhoods function, illuminating the
creativity and resilience that characterize the
lives of those who experience the hardships
associated with economic deprivation.
Full information about the book, including the
table of contents, is available online:
http://go.ucpress.edu/Jankowski
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