Broke by Jodie Adams Kirshner

Broke by Jodie Adams Kirshner

"Essential...in showcasing people who are persistent, clever, flawed, loving, struggling and full of contradictions, Broke affirms why it's worth solving the hardest problems in our most challenging cities in the first place. " --Anna Clark, The New York Times

"Through in-depth reporting of structural inequality as it affects real people in Detroit, Jodie Adams Kirshner's Broke examines one side of the economic divide in America" --Salon

"What Broke really tells us is how systems of government, law and finance can crush even the hardiest of boot-strap pullers." --Brian Alexander, author of Glass House

A galvanizing, narrative account of a city's bankruptcy and its aftermath told through the lives of seven valiantly struggling Detroiters

Bankruptcy and the austerity it represents have become a common "solution" for struggling American cities. What do the spending cuts and limited resources do to the lives of city residents? In Broke, Jodie Adams Kirshner follows seven Detroiters as they navigate life during and after their city's bankruptcy. Reggie loses his savings trying to make a habitable home for his family. Cindy fights drug use, prostitution, and dumping on her block. Lola commutes two hours a day to her suburban job. For them, financial issues are mired within the larger ramifications of poor urban policies, restorative negligence on the state and federal level and--even before the decision to declare Detroit bankrupt in 2013--the root causes of a city's fiscal demise.

Like Matthew Desmond's Evicted, Broke looks at what municipal distress means, not just on paper but in practical--and personal--terms. More than 40 percent of Detroit's 700,000 residents fall below the poverty line. Post-bankruptcy, they struggle with a broken real estate market, school system, and job market--and their lives have not improved.

Detroit is emblematic. Kirshner makes a powerful argument that cities--the economic engine of America--are never quite given the aid that they need by either the state or federal government for their residents to survive, not to mention flourish. Success for all America's citizens depends on equity of opportunity.

Kirshner, Jodie Adams: - Jodie Adams Kirshner is research professor at New York University and a lecturer in international bankruptcy law at Columbia University Law School. She has also served as a technical advisor to the Bank for International Settlements and worked as an independent consultant for financial funds investing in distressed debt. Until 2014, she was a member of the Cambridge University law faculty. She also served as deputy director of the Cambridge LLM program and the Cambridge Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law and as a fellow of Peterhouse College, Cambridge.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781250220639
ISBN 10	1250220637
Title	Broke
Author	Jodie Adams Kirshner
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	St Martin's Press
Year published	2019-11-19
Number of pages	368
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.