Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect

It is challenging to understand how neighborhoods influence the life outcomes of people because people move and neighborhoods change. The dynamic processes are a context where public policy attempts to intervene to help the most disadvantaged. This book reports on a monumental study of Chicago. For that alone, it is worth reading. It pushes back against some of the prevailing notions of economists, which should advance the inquiry and dialogue in the social sciences.My only disappointment in the book was the lack of policy prescriptions for the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. Collective efficacy plays an important role in protecting the residents of these places. But I left asking what are the models to improve collective efficacy in neighborhoods.

In this book, Robert Sampson clearly summarizes two decades worth of research on neighborhood effects in Chicago and provides new findings that move urban studies forward. While some of Dr. Sampson's journal articles are dense and complicated, this book is not. It is incredibly clear and concise. Sampson wisely leaves out explanations of the rigorous and advanced statistics used to draw the conclusions, and focuses more on interpretation and explanation. This approach makes the oftentimes confusing neighborhood effects research much more accessible. Sampson also provides what is probably the clearest definition of collective efficacy to date.This book is a must-read for people interested in how a neighborhood can affect life outcomes.

Excellent book for a researcher.For those readers that do not conduct research, you can safely skip over the statistics and read the text and gain insights.

This book was quite a dense read, however I appreciated Sampson's thoroughness and depth of research. I became much more interested in the topic the more I read. It's definitely a textbook kind of read, but worthwhile if you're interested in working in neighborhoods.

Amazing book. Really enjoyed reading it. Quick delivery 👍🏻👍🏻

Terrific insight

Powerful insights based on substantial data that define a coherent model for neighborhood vitality and revitalization.

more about the social movements and connectivity in the city than physical planning. A very powerful book tho, but of limited interest to an urban designer.

現代犯罪学の旗手ロバート・サンプソンが、洗練されたデータと手法を用いて、前世紀初頭に社会学で有力であった社会解体論を現代に蘇らせる。

The second sentence in this book left me stunned, my mind spinning away on a path never envisaged by the author.First sentence: "Imagine a world where distance has died, where globalization and high-tech wonders have rendered place irrelevant..." Second sentence: "From the North End of Boston to the North Beach of San Francisco, imagine cities where..."Stop! Rewind! Does the world start and end with the shoreline of the USA?If a serious academic has such a narrow-minded view of the world - supported by all those who edited, proofed, reviewed and wrote the Foreword for the book - is it any surprise that America is so out of touch with the rest of the world? Does not so many of America's problems with other parts of the world stem from this parochial outlook? Shouldn't all American education teach understanding of the world beyond the American shoreline?I must get back to reading the book, which looks excellent.