The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community Hardcover – August 4, 2014

“Marc Dunkelman gets it. In The Vanishing Neighbor, he shows how the traditional web of relationships that makes up American life is undergoing fundamental change, why it matters, and what we need to do about it.”
- President Bill Clinton

“Important… provide[s] fresh thoughts about community in the United States that might win assent from left and right alike.”
- E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post

“A highly ambitious, wide-ranging book that offers important new insights into why the bonds of community have unraveled in America in the past generation.”
- Alan Ehrenhalt, author of The Great Inversion

“In The Vanishing Neighbor, Marc Dunkelman conducts us insightfully through the work of astute sociologists and other observers of American social life, from the time in the 1950s when they described a conformist and confident society to the confused and more uncertain period of today. He focuses on one significant change: the transformation of the American 'township,' a defining characteristic of American society since Tocqueville first identified it, into something quite different. As Dunkelman ably shows, rapid economic change, the digital revolution, and other factors have fundamentally altered our social life, our political life, and our ability to solve the problems of a rapidly changing society.”
- Nathan Glazer, professor emeritus of sociology and education, Harvard University

“The Vanishing Neighbor is an urgent, challenging, strongly reasoned argument about the health of American society. Marc Dunkelman speaks directly to the communication gap between our local communities and the governments that serve them. How we bridge that gap―as working people, as political leaders, and as neighbors―will determine the care we provide to our loved ones and the opportunities we leave our children for years to come.”
- Neera Tanden, president, Center for American Progress

“After a panoramic view of how the United States has changed in so many ways, Marc Dunkelman argues that Americans are left with a sense of isolation from neighbors nearby: we keep 'inner-ring' relationships with family and close friends plus 'outer-ring' with Facebook friends we see infrequently, but we have lost middle-ring relationships with families down the street and a barber around the corner. Institutions, Dunkelman believes, must adapt to these new realities, nourishing a fresh sense of community. This is an insightful call for remembering what Tocqueville found best about America.”
- David Gergen, codirector of the Center for Public Leadership and professor of public service at Harvard Kennedy School and senior political analyst, CNN

“A meditation on the evaporation of American exceptionalism… thought-provoking [and] evenhanded.”
- Kirkus Reviews

“A rich and accessible diagnosis of contemporary mores and discontents.”
- Publishers Weekly

Marc J. Dunkelman is a Research Fellow at Brown University’s A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions and a Senior Fellow at the Clinton Foundation. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Politico, and National Affairs, among other publications. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island.