Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 1931
- 2 Life, Death, and Learning in the Cities
- 3 Toward a New Economy, 1890 to 1930
- 4 State Crafting – American Style
- 5 Confronting the World
- 6 Winners and Losers, 1890 to 1930
- 7 New Deal Experiments
- 8 Fighting On God’s Side
- 9 The New Aristocracy, 1946 to 1969
- 10 The Suburban Conquest of the 1960s
- 11 Empire in the American Century
- 12 The Tattered Empire of the 1970s
- 13 The Cracked Core
- 14 The American Solution, 1981 to 2001
- 15 Conservatism: Rhetoric and Realities, 1981 to 2001
- 16 The Hegemony Trap
- 17 The American Dream, 1981 to 2001
- 18 The Creative Society in Danger
- Acknowledgments
- Index
- References
17 - The American Dream, 1981 to 2001
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 1931
- 2 Life, Death, and Learning in the Cities
- 3 Toward a New Economy, 1890 to 1930
- 4 State Crafting – American Style
- 5 Confronting the World
- 6 Winners and Losers, 1890 to 1930
- 7 New Deal Experiments
- 8 Fighting On God’s Side
- 9 The New Aristocracy, 1946 to 1969
- 10 The Suburban Conquest of the 1960s
- 11 Empire in the American Century
- 12 The Tattered Empire of the 1970s
- 13 The Cracked Core
- 14 The American Solution, 1981 to 2001
- 15 Conservatism: Rhetoric and Realities, 1981 to 2001
- 16 The Hegemony Trap
- 17 The American Dream, 1981 to 2001
- 18 The Creative Society in Danger
- Acknowledgments
- Index
- References
Summary
I’m living and raising a family in a struggling city, and I won't pretend that this hasn't influenced my history of America in recent decades. I feel close to this struggle every morning when I read the newspaper. You may be familiar with Baltimore because of a movie or television program. If you watched The Wire, you probably have a mental picture of dark streets, warehouses, and crime. We have plenty of those. Baltimore is typical of the East Coast port cities that have been having severe problems for many years now, have had one or more surges of inner-city revival, and are continuing to look for ways to deal with drugs, crime, and commercial decay.
Each city has, of course, its own particular qualities and history. In Baltimore, for instance, there are several enclaves within the city where the big old houses of yesterday's urban elite have not been broken into apartments, one of the first steps toward decay. My family and I live happily on one of those urban islands, Guilford, eight minutes from my university and twelve minutes from my young daughters’ school.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Creative Society – and the Price Americans Paid for It , pp. 273 - 289Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011