The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, and Economic Change in an American Metropolis [Paperback]

Barry Bluestone (Author), Mary Huff Stevenson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0871541262 | ISBN-13: 978-0871541260 | Publication Date: September 2002

This volume documents Boston's metamorphosis from a casualty of manufacturing decline in the 1970s to a paragon of the high-tech and service industries in the 1990s. The city's rebound has been part of a wider regional renaissance, as new commercial centers have sprung up outside the city limits, and a stream of immigrants has flowed into the area, redrawing the map of ethnic relations in the city. Boston's renaissance remains uneven, and the authors identify a variety of handicaps (low education, unstable employment, single parenthood) that still hold minorities back. Nonetheless this book presents Boston as a hopeful example of how America's older cities can reinvent themselves in the wake of suburbanization and deindustrialization.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Since the 1950s, the state of American cities has preoccupied the public imagination. But how much of what is reported in the media comes in the form of presumption, sweeping generalization or conjecture? One in a series of volumes examining a broad range of U.S. cities, this book offers an in-depth look at the enormous changes that have occurred in Boston, Mass., since the 1970s (when the city was rated the lowest on a Brookings Institution study for cities in distress). Carefully detailing how Boston regained healthy levels of employment, housing and family income in the 1990sAwhile experiencing the "growing dominance of high technology" and a decline in blue-collar jobsABluestone and Stevenson chart how the city's radically shifting economic base has affected families, racial and ethnic minorities, women, schools, property distribution and the labor market. Using charts, statistical analysis and reports from both the private and public sectors, the authors paint a graphic, detailed portrait of a city in flux. They discuss, among other topics, how class tensions in the post-Civil War era affected housing stock, the effect of unemployment on minority women and the correlation of high school education to hourly wage rates and job opportunities, and they effectively map the impact of major social and racial changes on this urban environment. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

"The Boston Renaissance is a tour de force. Drawing upon a rich array of new data, Barry Bluestone and Mary Huff Stevenson provide an original and insightful analysis of Boston's remarkable triple revolution. This book is replete with information and should be read by scholars and students alike." —William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University

"How an old and declining northeast city transformed itself into one of the most successful urban communities in America is a story that must be told, and it is told effectively in The Boston Renaissance." —Michael S. Dukakis, professor of political science and former governor of Massachusetts --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation (September 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871541262
• ISBN-13: 978-0871541260
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,481,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superbly researched, written and presented history., September 5, 2000

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, and Economic Change in an American Metropolis (The Multi City Study of Urban Inequality) (Hardcover)

The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, And Economic Change In An American Metropolis is the detailed story of how Boston was transformed from a city with declining manufacturing base, depopulation, and racial unrest back in the 1970s, to the confident, multicultural, high-tech industry oriented, prosperous cosmopolitan city it is today. The authors draw upon a wide variety of historical and contemporary resources to explain Boston's impressive rebirth and redevelopment, and vastly improved ethnic and racial co-existence. Still very much a work in progress, Boston's story could well serve as a template for other troubled communities, large and small, anywhere within the confines of the United States as we progress through the first decade of a new century.