People, Plans, and Policies: Essays on Poverty, Racism, and Other National Urban Problems

by Herbert J. Gans

Overview

The primary theme of this collection of essays is that the cities' basic problems are poverty and racism, and until these concerns are addressed by bringing about racial equality, creating jobs, and instituting other reforms, the generally low quality of urban life will persist.

Gans argues that the individual must work to alter society. He believes that not only must parents have jobs to improve their children's school performance, but that the country needs a modernized "New Deal," a more labor-intensive economy, and a thirty-two hour work week to achieve full employment. Other controversial ideas presented in this book include Gans's opposition to the whole notion of an underclass, which he feels is the latest way for the nonpoor to unjustly label the poor as undeserving. He also believes that poverty continues to plague society because it is often useful to the nonpoor. He is critical of architecture that aims above all to be aesthetic or to make philosophical statements, is doubtful that planners can or should try to reform our social or personal lives, and thinks we should concentrate on achieving individual public policies until we learn how to properly plan as a society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231074025
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	06/10/1991
Series:	A Morningside Book
Pages:	383
Product dimensions:	6.34(w) x 9.31(h) x 1.17(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Herbert J. Gans is in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. He is the author of The Levittowners, also published by Columbia University Press.

Table of Contents

Part One: Environment and Behavior
1. Toward a Human Architecture: A Sociologist's View of the Profession
2. The Potential Environment and the Effective Environment
3. Urban Vitality and the Fallacy of Physical Determinism
Part Two: Understanding Cities and Suburbs
4. Urbanism and Suburbanism as Ways of Life: A Reevaluation of Definitions
5. American Urban Theories and Urban Areas: Observations on Contemporary Ecological, Marxist, and Other Paradigms
6. The Historical Comparison of Cities: Some Conceptual, Methodological, and Value Problems
7. Robert Moses: The Master Broker
Part Three: City Planning, Social Planning, and Social Policy
8. City Planning in America, 1890-1968: A Sociological Analysis
9. The Goal-Oriented Approach to Planning
10. Planning, Social Planning, and Politics
11. Social Science for Social Policy
Part Four: Anti-Poverty Policies: Homes, Schools and Jobs
12. The Human Implications of Slum Clearance and Relocation
13. From the Bulldozer to Homelessness
14. The Role of Education in the Escape from Poverty
15. Planning for a Labor-Intensive Economy
16. The Thirty-Two Hour Work Week: An Analysis of Worksharing
17. The Uses of Poverty
Part Five: Anti-Poverty Policies II: Race, Ethnicity, and Class
18. Escaping from Poverty: A Comparison of the Immigrant and Black Experience
19. The Black Family: Reflections on the "Moynihan Report"
20. Culture and Class in the Study of Poverty: An Approach to Antipoverty Research
21. The Dangers of the Underclass: Its Harmfulness as a Planning Concept

Editorial Reviews

The theme of this collection of essays is that the city's basic problems are poverty and racism, and that until these issues are addressed through job creation and racial equality, the low quality of urban life will persist. Gans argues for a modernized New Deal, a more labor intensive society, and a 32 hour work week. Most of the essays are revised and/or updated from previous publication. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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