The Unheavenly City Revisited

By Edward C. Banfield

Book Overview

This book attempts to make people think about the problems of the cities in the light of scholarly findings.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316080144
• ISBN13: 9780316080149
• Release Date: January 1974
• Publisher: Scott Foresman
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Incredible insight as to the problems plaguing the lower class

This book is a must read for anyone dealing with individuals in the lower classes of American society.

Time heals all wounds

[I haven't read the book in some time and don't have a copy at hand, so I may misremember some things.] Time is the great divider of men in the city. Those that can see a future and plan for it are on the opposite end of the social spectrum than those that live merely for the action of the present. Banfield does a superb job of showing that this time distinction is something that is impervious to race or color. One of the great insights is that the classes of a city are not fixed in their positions: they tend to migrate from lower to upper over time. I read his chapter on "Rioting Mainly for Fun and Profit" just before the Rodney King riots in LA. It was oddly prophetic.

A Prophetic Analysis

I was assigned to read the original version of Banfield's work in an undergraduate municipal government course in 1972, shortly after it was written. At that time, I lived in a slum ridden eastern city and Banfield's observations about the philosophical shortcomings leading to poverty and urban blight, as well as the cynicism of many of the recipients and brokers of governmental largess, seemed sensible, if not obvious from my empirical observations. Unfortunately, Banfield's observations, and more importantly his prescriptions for ending the embryonic "victim" culture, received more results in the form of threats to the author than in sounder urban governance. At the same time, more of the middle classes and productive members of the working classes fled that city as well as others around the country and those cities continued to decline. And that is the key importance of reading Banfield in 2001. Time has proven him correct, every bit as much as it has demonstrated the carnival barker's fraud that encompassed every portion of the so-called "great society." These debates exist today as well and the education debate is one of the best examples. Similarly, our national and local city politics are replete with countless snake oil salesmen promising a new Jerusalem if we can just redistribute more wealth from the productive to the grasping victims. This does work very well for the redistributors, but a review of Banfield's text 30 years later demonstrates beyond reasonable dispute that it does not for the cities or their slum dwellers. A generation was wasted ignoring these realities; hopefully another one won't have to be.

A Wonderful, Contrarian Study of Urban Issues

Edward C. Banfield's most important work, Unheavenly City (and its revised edition, Unheavenly City Revisited) was and remains a dramatic challenge to the traditional concepts of urban renewal originating in the New Deal. The book was intensely controversial when it was published, and it's not hard to see why from reading it, as Banfield challenges almost every tenet of the existing urban studies orthodoxy. From the impact of minimum wage laws to the importance of social class, the author touches every important issue that faces the underclass in cities, with often surprising recommendations. Conservatives will appreciate what is probably the best statement of a conservative plan and thinking about the plight of cities, but Banfield's meticulous use of careful arguments and research make the book useful for those who disagree with him as well. An excellent book for anyone who wants to examine the problems of cities and challenge their own assumptions, with bold recommendations for helping those trapped in poverty.