The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America

In this well-researched title, authors Edin, H. Luke Shaefer, and Timothy J. Nelson, all top experts on the subject of poverty, find that the most economically disadvantaged populations in the U.S. are in the areas of Appalachia, the Hispanic districts in South Texas, and the southern Cotton Belt. Of the 100 most impoverished places in the country, only 12 are cities, while the majority are rural. This book indicates that the poorest communities all suffer from separate and highly unequal schooling and crumbling physical and social infrastructures. Further exasperating this situation is a wide swath of entrenched political corruption in these places, which has prevented any remedial legislation from being enacted, and a backlash, sometimes violent, against basic civil rights. Revolts against these conditions began in the early years of the Great Depression. The battle continued and finally inspired Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, a set of programs designed to help impoverished Americans. Edin, Shaefer, and Nelson offer an eye-opening view of the deeply entrenched status of poverty today.