Our Kids The American Dream in Crisis by Robert D. Putnam

This book was cited in this year's Kid's Count data issued by our Office of Social and Economic Data Analysis at MU.  Putnam explores how the 'American Dream' of opportunity has evolved from his generation, 1950s, to the experience of current young people age 18 through early twenties.  He focuses on the differences in parenting, families, schooling, and community.  The comparisons are stark, and highlight the stratification of neighborhoods into high income/low income with little interchange between them.  He describes consequences of that de facto segregation, using interviews with contemporary young people and their parents, contrasted with the experience of members of his generation. The basic insecurity, whether of shelter, family, inadequate schools, and drugs and crime in communities, of the lowest income families has meant that many children are growing up in very precarious situations.  And yet we expect these kids to conform to the ideals of the American dream, to understand how to navigate college or trade school and move into stable jobs.   Putnam offers some solutions, in the final chapter, but focuses most on local action, and not much on the more sweeping changes that would be needed to have any true impact. 368 pages

Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York's Underground Economy by Sudhir Venkatesh

(Posted for Paul Mathews)

While attending Columbia University, the author does research on the New York City social groups and those trying to rise from their poor racial beginnings.  304 pages.

Third World America, by Arianna Huffington

If you're a reader of The Huffington Post, you're well acquainted with Arianna's viewpoint. Here she chronicles the stagnation and decline of income of the middle class. As the middle class declines and there is greater distance between the wealthy and the rest of us, there is also risk that America's infrastructure - roads, schools, bridges, water lines - will fall into such disrepair that many of us will be living in our own 'third world America.' Good food for thought as we move into another election cycle. 240 pp.