SO CIAL SCIENCE

Priced Out

Stuyvesant Town and the Loss of Middle Class Neighborhoods Rachel A. Woldoff, Lisa M. Morrison, and Michael R. Glass On an average morning in the tree-lined parks, plazas, and play-areas of Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town, birds chirp as early risers dash off to work, elderly residents enjoy a peaceful morning stroll, and flocks of parents usher their children to school. It seems an unlikely location for conflict and strife, yet this eighteen-block area, initially planned as middle-class affordable housing, is the site of an ongoing struggle between long-term, rent-regulated residents, younger, market-rate tenants, and new owners seeking to turn this community into a luxury commodity. Priced Out takes readers into this heated battle as a transitioning neighborhood wrestles with contemporary capitalist strategies and the struggle to preserve renters’ rights. The authors offer an intimate view into the lives of different groups of tenants involved in this struggle for prime real estate in New York, from students experiencing the city for the first time to baby boomers hanging on to the vestiges of middle-class urban life. A compelling, fascinating account of changing urban landscapes and the struggle for security, Priced Out offers a comprehensive perspective of a community that, to some, is becoming unrecognizable as it is upgraded and altered

The Neighborhood Has Its Own Rules How Violence is Managed Among the Urban Poor in South Los Angeles

Cid Gregory Martinez the n e ig hbo r h o o d ha s its L atinos and african americans in south Los angeLes

“An excellent example of ethnography at its best and an important contribution to the field.” Martín Sánchez-Jankowski, author of Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change and Resilience in Poor Neighborhoods

South Los Angeles is often seen as ground zero for inter-racial conflict and violence in the United States. Since the 1940s, South LA has been predominantly a low-income African American neighborhood, and yet since the early 1990s Latino immigrants—mostly from Mexico and many undocumented—have moved in record numbers to the area. Given that more than a quarter million people live in South LA and that poverty rates exceed 30 percent, inter-racial conflict and violence surprises no one. The real question is: why hasn’t there been more? Through vivid stories and interviews, The Neighborhood Has Its Own Rules provides an answer to this question. cid gregory m ar tine z

Based on in-depth ethnographic field work collected when the author lived and worked in schools in South Central, this study reveals the day-to-day ways in which vibrant social institutions in South LA— its churches, its local politicians, and even its gangs—have reduced conflict and kept violence to a level that is manageable for its residents. Martinez argues these institutions have allowed established African Americans and newcomer Latinos to co-exist through avoidance—an under-appreciated strategy for managing conflict that plays a crucial role in America’s low-income communities. Ultimately, this book proposes a different understanding of how neighborhood institutions are able to mitigate conflict and violence through several community dimensions of informal social controls.

RACHAEL A. WOLDOFF is Associate Professor of Sociology at West Virginia University. She is the author of White Flight/Black Flight: The Dynamics of Racial Change in an American Neighborhood, winner of the 2013 Best Book in Urban Affairs Award given by the Urban Affairs Association. LISA M. MORRISON is a Social Affairs Officer at the United Nations in New York City. MICHAEL R. GLASS is Lecturer of Urban Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and the co-editor of Performativity, Politics, and the Production of Social Space.

CID MARTINEZ is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of San Diego

MARCH 240 PAGES • 4 black & white illustrations PAPER • 978-1-4798-1863-1 • $28.00A (£18.99) CLOTH • 978-1-4798-1246-2 • $89.00X (£62.00) SOCIOLOGY

JULY 272 PAGES • 17 black & white illustrations PAPER • 978-0-8147-6284-4 • $28.00A (£18.99) CLOTH • 978-0-8147-7040-5 • $89.00X (£62.00) CRIMINOLOGY

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1.800.996.NYUP