William Julius Wilson
"Uneasy Peace has enhanced my understanding of the decline in urban violent crime. Compelling too is Sharkey’s discussion of ways to avert a possible new wave of national violence. This well-written and carefully researched book is a must-read for anyone residing in our nation’s cities."
Tracey L. Meares
"Patrick Sharkey explains with accessible precision just how much the massive decline in homicide since the 1990s has mattered to the most vulnerable of city-dwellers, African American men. Sharkey also makes clear why this public health triumph is precarious.… Any student of cities will regard this book as essential reading."
|Los Angeles Times
"Fascinating and provocative."
Booklist (starred)
"A well-documented, thoughtful look at major American cities and their comeback from deserted ghost towns to thriving urban centers. . . . This engaging, readable offering should attract interest from city planners, law enforcement, urban dwellers, and anyone concerned about our cities."
Wall Street Journal - Edward Glaeser
"Insightful and engaging.… An excellent introduction to America’s up-and-down urban-violence roller-coaster ride."
Paul Butler
"Admirably connects two stories about the criminal legal system that are usually told separately. One is that the country that Americans live in is safer than it has been for a long time. The other story is that for some citizens, especially African-American men, the country that they live in is not free."
Matthew Desmond
"While many Americans believe crime is on the rise, cities are safer today than at any other point in recorded history. But why? The great crime decline has remained a mystery—until now. With deep knowledge and lucid prose, Uneasy Peace uncovers the multiple forces that brought about this sweeping transformation in modern urban life, forces that were not without their costs. This book profoundly changed how I think about crime, violence, and justice in America."
New Yorker - Adam Gopnik
"Remarkable. . . . The story of the crime decline is about the wisdom of single steps and small sanities. . . . It is possible to see this as a kind of humanist miracle, a lesson about the self-organizing and, sometimes, self-healing capacities of human communities that’s as humbling, in its way, as any mystery that faith can offer."
Richard Florida
"Patrick Sharkey, the leading young scholar of urban crime and concentrated poverty, brilliantly dissects the causes of the great urban crime decline that has brought our great cities back to life, and outlines what it will take to ensure that our cities remain safe, secure, better, and more equitable places for all. Uneasy Peace is a must-read for mayors, city-builders, urbanists, and all those concerned with building and living in great urban places."
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2017-10-02
A sociologist's account of the "stunning" decline in urban American violence in the past two decades.In a nuanced work based on three years of research on the ways in which dwindling crime has "altered" city life—mainly for the better—Sharkey (Chair, Sociology/New York Univ.; Stuck in Place: Urban Neighborhoods and the End of Progress Toward Racial Equality, 2013) provides significant new data showing how, since the 1990s, cities have come back to life. Families returned from the suburbs. Poor neighborhoods attracted newcomers. Schools became safer. Fewer homicides sparked "an improvement in the life expectancy of black men that rivals any public health breakthrough of the last several decades." Indeed, "2014 was the safest on record in New York, and one of the safest in U.S. history," he writes. Quick to note that most Americans don't believe these trends (largely due to crime-heavy local news reporting and outright misleading news), Sharkey shows how an era of intensive policing, punitive criminal justice policies, aggressive prosecution of offenders, unprecedented incarceration, and uncommon mobilization of community residents has produced these remarkable changes. He examines how neighborhood organizations have emerged as "guardians" of urban spaces, the roles of private security and surveillance, and the many benefits of safer streets, especially for the disadvantaged. There are excellent sections on how children are affected by inequality and violence, the changing nature of life in gentrified Harlem and Washington, D.C.'s Shaw neighborhood, and the role of videos in unleashing "intense, visceral anger" in poor communities over clashes with police. With signs that violent crime has risen in the last few years, the author argues that sustained investment in stronger neighborhoods (preparing them for the coming return of incarcerated residents), with more community-minded police and other advocates, must occur under concerted action by the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.A rich, complex book that makes splendid use of data to trace the recent renaissance of city neighborhoods and how children and the poor flourish in a time of relative peace.
