The Divided City
Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America
344 pages
6 x 9
Book Description
Who really benefits from urban revival? Cities, from trendy coastal areas to the nation’s heartland, are seeing levels of growth beyond the wildest visions of only a few decades ago. But vast areas in the same cities house thousands of people living in poverty who see little or no new hope or opportunity. Even as cities revive, they are becoming more unequal and more segregated. What does this mean for these cities—and the people who live in them?
In The Divided City, urban practitioner and scholar Alan Mallach shows us what has happened over the past 15 to 20 years in industrial cities like Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland, and Baltimore, as they have undergone unprecedented, unexpected revival. He draws from his decades of experience working in America’s cities, and pulls in insightful research and data, to spotlight these changes while placing them in their larger economic, social, and political context. Mallach explores the pervasive significance of race in American cities and looks closely at the successes and failures of city governments, nonprofit entities, and citizens as they have tried to address the challenges of change.
The Divided City offers strategies to foster greater equality and opportunity. Mallach makes a compelling case that these strategies must be local in addition to being concrete and focusing on people’s needs—education, jobs, housing and quality of life. Change, he argues, will come city by city, not through national plans or utopian schemes.
This is the first book to provide a comprehensive, grounded picture of the transformation of America’s older industrial cities. It is neither a dystopian narrative nor a one-sided "the cities are back" story, but a balanced picture rooted in the nitty-gritty reality of these cities. The Divided City is imperative for anyone who cares about cities and who wants to understand how to make today’s urban revival work for everyone.
Review Quotes
"Deeply researched survey of the dual processes of revival and decline in American cities large and small… certain chapters, particularly one on gentrification, captivate."
Booklist
"Picks apart the slow progress in the U.S.'s post-industrial (or 'legacy') cities, and finds that by and large, it's leaving a large portion, mainly low-income and nonwhite, of the population behind."
Fast Company
"This important new book is a must-read for anyone working to change the course of urban American today, perhaps in Detroit most of all."
Detroit Free Press
"The Divided City is a must-read. Focusing on the often overlooked Rust Belt region, Mallach counters the dominant narrative of the post-industrial, downtown revitalization happening across U.S. cities by taking an in depth look at the many areas that are seeing the opposite."
Archinect
"Alan Mallach’s The Divided City is the best and most relevant book written on urban planning and policy in post-industrial cities in the 21st century...[It] is not only packed with information and ideas, but is well-written, enjoyable, and engaging....[it] provides a thorough, nuanced, and much-needed discussion about race and concentrated poverty...vitally important..useful to practitioners, academics, and citizens...a classic on urban planning and policy."
Cleveland Scene
"Compelling...valuable."
Tulsa Book Review
"A cogent analysis of the current state of play of the nation's urban challenges and opportunities, and will give anyone who thinks about cities a wealth of new information, a powerful perspective on cities and neighborhood change, and some inspirational words."
City Observatory
"Timely...Mallach...offers a cogent, data-driven analysis of urban polarization, how we got here, and what it will take to create inclusive cities that work for all."
Shelterforce
"The Divided City makes important contributions towards understanding both gentrification and neighborhood decline....[It]is one of the three most important books on cities that I have read in recent years."
Housing Studies
"Prudent, deeply learned...book."
American Prospect
"The Divided City interrogates challenging topics with insight and nuance....[It] presents an informative analysis of postindustrial American cities. Mallach starts with a thorough history of urban manufacturing economies and uses relevant data to describe how and why these cities’ neighborhoods are changing, both for good and bad. He details how race and class are fundamentally linked to which neighborhoods are changing and who is affected, and points to successful examples from cities that are working to ensure more equitable growth. This is a worthy topic, and Mallach demonstrates himself a capable narrator and a persuasive advocate."
Carolina Planning Journal
"The Divided City is a scintillating review of an urban renaissance throughout some fascinating and diverse cities in America....The Divided City avoids the pitfalls of recommending what the author believes is a single, cure-all solution for urban ailments. Mallach allows readers to make assessments of their surroundings, diagnose their surroundings, and make informed decisions."
Journal of the American Planning Association
"In The Divided City, Alan Mallach expertly charts the decline of America's industrial cities, and explores what has led to their unexpected, and at times unequal, resurgence. By looking at cases across the country—from Detroit to Pittsburgh to Baltimore, and more—Mallach paints a complicated picture of urban inequality in the United States and examines its many causes and manifestations, including its disproportionate impact on communities of color. This book is an essential read for anyone who wants to understand how the forces of structural inequality shape the cities we know and love, and what tools we have as policy makers, nonprofits, and residents to make our cities more just, equal places to live."
Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation
"Always a master teacher, Mallach helps us understand why today's city comeback is so limited and, most importantly, shares optimism and concrete strategies for how cities can chart a new path of equitable development and inclusive prosperity."
Angela Glover Blackwell, CEO of PolicyLink
"Alan Mallach has written a thought-provoking book that tells the story of many forgotten communities across America. He digs deep and not only highlights past failures, but future opportunities to help breathe life back into these places. This book is an important read for anyone who cares about bettering the community they live in."
Congressman Dan Kildee
"Alan Mallach—master storyteller, historian, and policy wonk—offers a thorough analysis of the decline of America's legacy cities and the current challenges that they face. He then proposes an interesting future vision for well-governed, resilient places that offer high quality of life and broad-based opportunity for all residents."
George McCarthy, President and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Revival and Inequality
Chapter 1: The Rise and Fall of the American Industrial City
Chapter 2: Millennials, Immigrants, and the Shrinking Middle Class
Chapter 3: From Factories to “Eds and Meds”
Chapter 4: Race, Poverty, and Real Estate
Chapter 5: Gentrification and Its Discontents
Chapter 6: Sliding Downhill: The Other Side of Neighborhood Change
Chapter 7: The Other Postindustrial America: Small Cities, Mill Towns, and Struggling Suburbs
Chapter 8: Empty Houses and Distressed Neighborhoods: Confronting the Challenge of Place
Chapter 9: Jobs and Education: The Struggle to Escape the Poverty Trap
Chapter 10: Power and Politics: Finding the Will to Change
Chapter 11: A Path to Inclusion and Opportunity
References
About the Author
Index
Events
Urban Revitalization for All — Island Press URP Webinar
Urban Revitalization for All — Island Press URP Webinar
Friday, 29 June 2018 - 1:15pm
This is a tale of two (kinds of) cities. First, there are the fast-growing coastal megalopolises—including Washington, DC, Seattle, and San Francisco—where an influx of millennials has spurred new investment in housing, transit, parks and other amenities. In those cities, the much celebrated urban revitalization has come at a cost: it has displaced countless long-time residents—especially people of color and those of limited means—who can no longer afford their newly gentrified neighborhoods.
Second, there are cities across the American heartland—Detroit, St. Louis and Cleveland, for example—where many neighborhoods are still waiting for their chance at revival. In those cities, residents of blighted neighborhoods suffer from disinvestment and dysfunction, caught in a downward spiral of declining value, revenue and services.
This Island Press Urban Resilience Project webinar will explore strategies to create urban revitalization for all—on the gentrifying coasts and in the still-declining rustbelt. It will explore successful strategies to boost investment without displacing less affluent residents, spotlighting innovative strategies to preserve affordable housing, create jobs, and foster racial and income diversity.
Featuring:
Anthony A. Williams, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director, Federal City Council; Mayor, Washington, DC (1999-2007) [Moderator]
Alan Mallach, Senior Fellow, Center for Community Progress; author of The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America
Justin Garrett Moore, Executive Director, NYC Public Design Commission; Adjunct Professor, Columbia University; Co-Founder, Urban Patch; AICP Commissioner, APA
Vivian Satterfield, Deputy Director, OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon
The Divided City: A Discussion with Alan Mallach
The Divided City: A Discussion with Alan Mallach
Monday, 25 June 2018 - 5:30pm
The Century Foundation & the Regional Plan Association
1 Whitehall Street
15th Floor
New York, NY 10014
United StatesThe Divided City: A Discussion with Alan Mallach
Join us for a conversation with Alan Mallach, author of The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America.
Comments provided by
Joseph Della Fave, Executive Director of Ironbound Community Corporation
Larisa Ortiz, Principal of Larisa Ortiz Associates and Commissioner of the New York City Planning Commission
Professor Laura Wolf-Powers of Hunter College's Department of Urban Policy and Planning
The factories may be gone, but millennials are flocking to affordable, once-industrial cities like Newark, Baltimore and Pittsburgh. But alongside their revival, these cities are turning into places of growing inequality, where small, glittering enclaves of prosperity are ringed by larger areas of decline, where millions are relegated to lives of poverty and hopelessness. Alan Mallach, a leading authority on economics and urban revitalization, shows how these cities have come to where they are today, why despite the success of small-scale efforts to build opportunity and inclusive prosperity, no city has yet been able to do so, and how cities can apply the lessons of successful efforts to become places of hope and opportunity.
Please register to join us for wine, cheese and conversation with Alan, Joseph Della Fave, Larisa Ortiz, and Laura Wolf-Powers.
The Divided City Book Event with Alan Mallach and Jake Blumgart
The Divided City Book Event with Alan Mallach and Jake Blumgart
Tuesday, 26 June 2018 - 5:30pm
Pipeline Philly
30 South 15th Street, 15th Floor
The Graham Building at Dilworth Park
Philadelphia, PA 19102
United StatesJoin PACDC and WHYY’s PlanPhilly for a conversation between Alan Mallach, the author of the new book The Divided City, and Jake Blumgart of PlanPhilly, on how cities like Philadelphia can and must chart a path forward toward inclusion and opportunity.
When? Tuesday, June 26th from 5:30-7:00 p.m.
Where? Pipeline Philly, The Graham Building at Dilworth Park, 30 South 15th Street, 15th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19102
Tickets are available for free, but you must RSVP here in advance.
In The Divided City, Mallach tells the real story of both the revival and the growing inequality in America’s older industrial cities, and examines whether, as they continue to grow, they can again become the places of hope and opportunity they once were. Combining big-picture analysis and research with the nitty-gritty reality of these cities drawn from author’s years of working in and studying them, Alan Mallach—a leading authority on economics and urban revitalization—offers an essential contribution to our understanding of American cities like Philadelphia.
Mallach looks practically at how we can make inclusion and opportunity a reality, and makes concrete recommendations in The Divided City on topics ranging from job creation and education to affordable housing and improving the quality of life in high-poverty areas.
Copies of The Divided City will be available for purchase at the event from Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee and Books, a locally owned, independent bookstore in Germantown. You can learn more about the book from Island Press.
Special thanks to Pipeline Philly.
About PlanPhilly: PlanPhilly is a project of WHYY News providing in-depth, original reporting on Philadelphia’s neighborhoods with a focus on urban design and planning, transportation, and development. Listen to PlanPhilly’s stories on WHYY 90.9 FM in Philadelphia and read them online.
Alan Mallach at Novel Memphis
Alan Mallach at Novel Memphis
Monday, 22 October 2018 - 6:00pm
Novel
387 Perkins Ext
Mempshi, TN 38117
United StatesEvent date: Monday, October 22, 2018 - 6:00pm to 7:30pm
Event address:
387 Perkins Ext
Memphis, TN 38117
Book talk and signing with Alan Mallach with The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America at Novel Memphis.
Next City Seminar: Alan Mallach on “The Divided City” Webinar
Next City Seminar: Alan Mallach on “The Divided City” Webinar
Monday, 19 November 2018 - 1:00pm
Join Next City for another event in our online seminar series, this time with guest presenter Alan Mallach, author of the new book The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America.
Who really benefits from urban revival? Cities, from trendy coastal areas to the nation’s heartland, are seeing levels of growth beyond the wildest visions of only a few decades ago. But vast areas in the same cities house thousands of people living in poverty who see little or no new hope or opportunity. Even as cities revive, they are becoming more unequal and more segregated. What does this mean for these cities — and the people who live in them?
The Divided City offers strategies to foster greater equality and opportunity. Mallach makes a compelling case that these strategies must be local in addition to being concrete and focusing on people’s needs — education, jobs, housing and quality of life. Change, he argues, will come city by city, not via national plans or utopian schemes. The Divided City is imperative for anyone who cares about cities and who wants to understand how to make today’s urban revival work for everyone.
Mallach is a senior fellow at the Center for Community Progress in Washington, DC. He is the author of many works on housing and planning, including “Bringing Buildings Back” and “Building a Better Urban Future: New Directions for Housing Policies in Weak Market Cities.” He has served as director of housing and economic development for Trenton, New Jersey, as a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
This seminar is pay what you wish to register. Pay any amount that you would like or nothing at all. Those who become sustaining members paying at least $5 a month, or making a one-time donation of $50, will receive “The Divided City” as a thank-you gift. Pay any amount to become a Next City member and receive all the membership benefits, inlcuding 30% off all Island Press titles (The Divided City included). Your contribution toward this seminar will be used to find even more amazing guests, cover hosting fees, and organize seminars like this one more frequently. Meanwhile, NewsMatch is matching all of donations made to Next City until the end of the year up to $1,000. And if you make a recurring donation, NewsMatch will double your donation for the full year. That means if you sign up for $10 a month, Next City gets an additional $120 from NewsMatch.
Celebrity Ask Strong Towns: Divided City author Alan Mallach
Celebrity Ask Strong Towns: Divided City author Alan Mallach
Thursday, 21 March 2019 - 1:00pm
Ask two random Americans whether they think post-industrial cities are “coming back,” and you’re likely to get two very different answers—even if both of those people live in the Rust Belt themselves. That’s because much of the development in the Detroits, Baltimores, and Clevelands of the world have been highly concentrated in just a handful of lucky neighborhoods. And the rest of the city, in many cases, have fallen into sharper patterns of decline than ever.
How did this happen, and what does it mean for those who want to see whole regions (and their residents) become financially strong, rather than just a few select corners of our legacy cities? That’s the question at the heart of scholar and urban practitioner Alan Mallach’s The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America. In his provocative and ground-breaking book, Mallach explores the economic, political, and social realities that have propelled so much of our nation’s largest cities into unhealthy and inequitable development patterns that resist simple narratives of both unilateral gentrification and unilateral decline. And then he explores what he thinks it will take to really create resilience for all their citizens.
On March 21st at 12pm CST, Strong Towns members are invited to a very special Ask Me Anything event with Alan Mallach. Participants in this edition of Celebrity Ask Strong Towns are invited to log on live for a conversation between the author and Strong Towns staffer Kea Wilson, followed by a moderated digital Q&A period with the author. Members, please check your email for your exclusive invite, or email team@strongtowns.org.
Not a member? Join the movement now to join this webcast and ask your questions live. A recording of this live conversation will be released in the weeks following for non-members.
Webinar: Designing the Megaregion and Healing the Divided City
Webinar: Designing the Megaregion and Healing the Divided City
Tuesday, 7 April 2020 - 1:00pm
Cities are growing into megaregions. As these megaregions grow, we are at a pivotal moment where we can choose to create more meaningful, better connected designs. These designs should be informed by GIS data mapping of sensitive environmental areas. Layered upon that should be investments into high speed rail and affordable housing. Zoning, both up-zoning and an examination of historic exclusionary zoning, must also be factored in. Throughout all this, equity needs to be the defining narrative to ensure that all people benefit, and no one is left behind.
During this webinar you’ll hear from two urban planning experts who will explore these topics. Jonathan Barnett, author of Designing the Megaregion: Meeting Urban Challenges at a New Scale and Alan Mallach, author of The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America both present during this webinar.
We recognize that many are teleworking through this period, so join us for this live and timely event.
Participants of the live webinar are eligible for 1.5 AICP CM credits. Register via the link below.
Blogs
Ignore Elon Musk. Let's Focus On Who & What Transit Is For
Ignore Elon Musk. Let's Focus On Who & What Transit Is For
A Changing Climate Means A Changing Society. The Island Press Urban Resilience Project, Supported By The Kresge Foundation And The JPB Foundation, Is Committed To A Greener, Fairer Future. This Article Was Originally Published January 18, 2018 in CityMetric.
Tech tycoon Elon Musk recently declared that public transit “sucks,” and is riddled with serial killers. In the Twitter storms that followed, there was much talk about Musk and his unconventional solutions to the mobility crisis.
We shouldn’t be talking, though, about Elon Musk. Instead, we should be talking about transit: what kind we have, who and what it’s for, and where it’s likely to go in the future.
Like almost everything else in 21st century America, transit is divided by class, and sometimes by race. Buses in the United States are thought to be for poor people, and the statistics largely bear that out. The people who ride buses are different from those who ride light rail and subways, and they are even more different from those who ride commuter trains.
Buses, however, also account for nearly two-thirds of all transit journeys to work outside New York City. And yet, most of the attention — and the funding — goes not to buses, but to their far more glamorous cousins, light rail and trolleys. And a lot of those projects, like Detroit’s much-heralded Q Line, actually have more to do with promoting redevelopment through real estate investment than with moving people around.
Instead of being defensive about people like Elon Musk, who — as others have pointed out — has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about, we should recognise that public transit in the United States is in serious trouble. For all the hype and the billions in investment, it’s still an exotic taste.
Outside New York City, only 3.5 per cent of work trips (and an even smaller percentage of non-work trips) take place on transit. Transit accounts for 10 per cent or more of work trips in only nine of the nation’s top 60 urban areas, and 10 per cent of total trips only in New York. Despite the fact that transit is heavily subsidised, many of our biggest systems are in poor shape or worse. Deferred maintenance, inadequate capital investment and fiscal woes are taking an increasing toll, as stories from New York, New Jersey, Washington DC and elsewhere over the past year or two have made abundantly clear.
While there is plenty of blame to go around, the most fundamental problem is that, for 60 years or more, we have systematically spread our population around our metro areas — yes, I’m talking about sprawl — in ways that are fundamentally incompatible with efficient, cost-effective mass transit. Many of our older cities have thinned out, while suburbia has spread further afield.
The city of Cleveland, for example, has only 40 per cent of the people it had in 1950, while ever-spreading development has formed a blob spreading 25 or more miles east and south of downtown.
This triggers what transit people call the ‘last mile problem.’ It’s a serious problem, and possibly insoluble by transit, despite a lot of creative thinking. People live — and their jobs are located — in such a dispersed fashion that, outside of high-density central areas, no plausible network of transit lines can get close enough to them to make transit preferable to simply getting in one’s car and driving off. And no, the solution is not getting people to walk more; that might work on a beautiful spring day, but not the rest of the time.
This problem is further complicated by two big developments in transportation: ride-hailing systems like Uber and Lyft, and the imminent arrival of autonomous, self-driving vehicles. Whatever else they may or may not do, these changes have already made it easier for more people to use cars, whether theirs or someone else’s, and will make it even easier in the future. After all, if solving the last mile problem through transit involves taking Uber to the bus, and then another Uber from the bus to the workplace, why not just take one Uber to begin with?
Transit is important, but I think we have to take a step back and ask ourselves why it’s important. Public transit systems serve a variety of different policy agendas, including:
- Enabling financially-constrained people to get to jobs and take other necessary trips;
- Reducing congestion in dense urban areas and corridors;
- Promoting redevelopment of disinvested urban cores or transit hubs, and maintaining the competitive edge of urban centers;
- Reducing vehicular emissions;
- Enhancing mobility for people whose ability to use individual vehicles is limited, such as teenagers, the elderly and the disabled.
All of these functions are relevant, and important. But they are sometimes in conflict — and even when they’re not, we may not have enough resources to address all of them. If we invest hundreds of millions in light rail systems whose primary role is to foster redevelopment, we will have fewer resources to help people with limited options get to jobs with reasonable efficiency. With the majority of urban residents today working in the suburbs, that’s not an insignificant concern, and in my opinion, should be the highest priority.
We need to start thinking differently about transit. For example, we assume that transit should be a monopoly, run by the MTA in New York, the CTA in Chicago, SEPTA in Philadelphia, and so forth. Yet a monopoly can be a very inefficient way to achieve the many different goals that transit is called upon to serve.
A few years ago in CityLab, Lisa Margonelli pointed out that “America’s 20th largest bus service — hauling 120,000 riders a day — is profitable and also illegal.” She’s talking about the hundreds of what New Yorkers call “dollar vans,” which cater to people and areas inadequately served by public transit.
Most cities have something similar. Most or all are illegal. Why not allow anyone with a properly licensed, insured and inspected van to pick up passengers on street corners and take them where they want to go?
In the end, it’s not about Elon Musk. Indeed, if his words encourage us to think more about what transit is for, and how to achieve those goals — plausibly, not through imaginary tech ‘fixes’ — that would make this entire Twitter spat worthwhile.
Alan Mallach
Alan Mallach is a senior fellow at the Center for Community Progress in Washington, DC. He has served as director of housing and economic development for Trenton, N.J. as a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Inequality in Urban America—Alan Mallach Podcast Interview
Inequality in Urban America—Alan Mallach Podcast Interview
Who really benefits from urban revival? Cities, from trendy coastal areas to the nation’s heartland, are seeing levels of growth beyond the wildest visions of only a few decades ago. But vast areas in the same cities house thousands of people living in poverty who see little or no new hope or opportunity. Even as cities revive, they are becoming more unequal and more segregated.
In the latest episode in our series of Urban Resilience Project (URP) podcasts in partnership with Infinite Earth Radio, host Mike Hancox speaks with Alan Mallach about his new book The Divided City and what America’s urban transformation means for cities and the people who live in them.
“If we want a truly inclusive society, I think it’s really about one word: opportunity,” says Mallach. “Everybody should have these three basic opportunities: decent work, decent education, and a decent neighborhood.”
Listen below. You can also download the episode on iTunes and Stitcher.
Want more on this topic? Register for our FREE June 29th webinar Urban Revitalization for All featuring The Divided City author Alan Mallach and moderated by former Washington D.C. mayor Anthony Williams!
Kyler Geoffroy
Kyler Geoffroy is the Online Marketing Manager for Island Press
Town Hall Seattle Presents: Poverty and Prosperity in King County with Alan Mallach
Town Hall Seattle Presents: Poverty and Prosperity in King County with Alan Mallach
Who really benefits from urban revival? From trendy coastal areas to the nation’s heartland, cities are seeing levels of growth beyond the wildest visions of only a few decades ago. For a look at the ramifications of this explosive growth for our own region, we convene a panel of city planning experts and representatives for our local government. First, urban practitioner Alan Mallach shares insight from his book The Divided City, spotlighting the effects of revival on major metropolitan cities over the past 20 years. He contends that, in order to foster greater equality and opportunity in increasingly crowded cities, regions must develop local strategies that focus on the needs of the people—education, jobs, housing, and quality of life.
With these needs in mind, we turn to a panel of local policy-makers to discuss, compare, and contrast the challenges King County and the Puget Sound Region are facing in the wake of exponential growth. Sit in for a critical discussion with key figures in our local government as they share strategies for how Seattle and the region at large can overcome inequities resulting from the transformation of our urban area.
On Thursday, October 18, 2018, Alan Mallach gave a presentation at Pigott Auditorium at Seattle University. It was presented by Town Hall Seattle, Seattle University, The Housing Consortium, King County Green Tools. After his presentation a panel discussion took place with Jenny Durkan, Nancy Backus, Claudia Balducci. The conversation was moderated by Marty Kooistra and Patience Malaba. This is a recording of that evening's event.
Listen to the conversation from the Town Hall Seattle site or from the Island Press Soundcloud account.
Jen Hawse
Jen Hawse is the Partnership Manager at Island Press. She’s a big fan of travel, craft beer, dogs, and eating amazing food. You can generally find her in the kitchen cooking with her partner, Jason, or trying to convince her friends to play a boardgame.
