Barry Bluestone

The Urban Experience provides a fresh approach to the study of metropolitan areas by combining economic principles, social insight, and political realities with an appreciation of public policy to understand how U.S. cities and suburbs function in the 21st century. The new edition will feature a new cohesive framework called the Metropolitan Area Dynamic introduced in the first chapter of the book, then incorporated into every chapter, to demonstrate the demographic, economic, political, social, and public policy forces that impact metropolitan areas. The narrative of the book is grounded in the real life experiences of students and their families on the premise that there is a fascination about one's own surroundings to engage the students in their study. It uses a great deal of historical and comparative data to explore the wide variation in how we experience urban and suburban communities and will include greater discussion of cities worldwide to engage with large scale global issues like climate change, immigration/migration, and inequality. It addresses the changing role and function of U.S. metropolitan areas in an age of growing global competition and focuses on key contemporary problems facing cities and suburbs. Providing an interdisciplinary approach to the topic, the book introduces analyses from economics, sociology, and political science, urban studies, and public policy as useful tools to understand the evolution and current status of the nation's urban areas. The book will be a valuable text for urban scholars, public officials, and all those interested in understanding urban dynamics.

The Urban Experience provides a fresh approach to the study of metropolitan areas by combining economic principles, social insight, and political realities with an appreciation of public policy to understand how U.S. cities and suburbs function in the 21st century. The book is grounded in the real life experiences of students and their families on the premise that there is a fascination about one's own surroundings. It uses a great deal of historical and comparative data to explore the wide variation in how we experience urban and suburban communities. It addresses the changing role and function of U.S. metropolitan areas in an age of growing global competition and focuses on key contemporary problems facing cities and suburbs. The book introduces analyses from economics, sociology, and political science as useful tools to understand the evolution and current status of the nation's urban areas. It is the hope of the authors that after students have taken a one-semester course using this text they will have a much greater appreciation and understanding of cities and suburbs, allowing them to participate more fully in the communities where they work and live.

The immediate impact of deindustrialization—the suffering inflicted upon workers, their families, and their communities—has been widely reported by scholars and journalists. In this important volume, the authors seek to move discussion of America's industrial decline beyond the immediate ramifications of plant shutdowns by placing it into a broader social, political, and economic context. Emphasizing a historical approach, the authors explore the multiple meanings of one of the major transformations of the twentieth century. The concept of deindustrialization entered the popular and scholarly lexicon in 1982 with the publication of The Deindustrialization of America, by Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison. Beyond the Ruins both builds upon and departs from the insights presented in that benchmark study. In this volume, the authors rethink the chronology, memory, geography, culture, and politics of industrial change in America. Taken together, these original essays argue that deindustrialization is not a story of a single emblematic place, such as Flint or Youngstown, or a specific time period, such as the 1980s. Nor is it limited to the abandoned factory buildings associated with heavy industry. Rather, deindustrialization is a complex process that is uneven in its causes, timing, and consequences. The essays in this volume examine this process through a wide range of topics, from worker narratives and media imagery, to suburban politics, environmental activism, and commemoration.

In this elegantly argued book, political economists Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison examine America's great surge of economic expansion in its historical context to demonstrate the causes for the vibrancy of our economy. This is a Century Foundation Book.

It is no secret that corporate America is in trouble,as are labour unions,and a principal reason is our archaic system of labour-management relations, which excludes labour from participating in, and sharing responsibility for, the growth and profitability of the enterprises for which it works. In a book sure to arouse controversy in both management and labour circles, Barry and Irving Bluestone propose a new Enterprise Compact under which labour becomes co-responsible with management for all strategic business decisions,pricing, investment, plant location, and more.

This devastating critique by the authors of The Deindustrialization of America documents how the economic policies of the Reagan era have damaged the American standard of living and suggests how this trend may be reversed.