From Harvard sociologist and MacArthur "Genius" Matthew Desmond, a landmark work of scholarship and reportage that will forever change the way we look at poverty in America
In this brilliant, heartbreaking book, Matthew Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the $20 a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched stickup after her hours are cut. All are spending almost everything they have on rent, and all have fallen behind.
The fates of these families are in the hands of two landlords: Sherrena Tarver, a former schoolteacher turned inner-city entrepreneur, and Tobin Charney, who runs one of the worst trailer parks in Milwaukee. They loathe some of their tenants and are fond of others, but as Sherrena puts it, “Love don’t pay the bills.” She moves to evict Arleen and her boys a few days before Christmas.
Even in the most desolate areas of American cities, evictions used to be rare. But today, most poor renting families are spending more than half of their income on housing, and eviction has become ordinary, especially for single mothers. In vivid, intimate prose, Desmond provides a ground-level view of one of the most urgent issues facing America today. As we see families forced into shelters, squalid apartments, or more dangerous neighborhoods, we bear witness to the human cost of America’s vast inequality—and to people’s determination and intelligence in the face of hardship.
Based on years of embedded fieldwork and painstakingly gathered data, this masterful book transforms our understanding of extreme poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving a devastating, uniquely American problem. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.

Product Description
As China is transformed, relations between society, the state, and the city have become central. The Great Urban Transformation investigates what is happening in cities, the urban edges, and the rural fringe in order to explain these relations. In the inner city of major metropolitan centers, municipal governments battle high-ranking state agencies to secure land rents from redevelopment projects, while residents mobilize to assert property and residential rights. At the urban edge, as metropolitan governments seek to extend control over their rural hinterland through massive-scale development projects, villagers strategize to profit from the encroaching property market. At the rural fringe, township leaders become brokers of power and property between the state bureaucracy and villages, while large numbers of peasants are dispossessed, dispersed, and deterritorialized, and their mobilizational capacity is consequently undermined.
The Great Urban Transformation explores these issues, and provides an integrated analysis of the city and the countryside, elite politics and grassroots activism, legal-economic and socio-political issues of property rights, and the role of the state and the market in the property market.
About the Author
You-tien Hsing is Associate Professor of Geography at University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of Making Capitalism in China: The Taiwan Connection (1998, Oxford University Press) and co-editor (with Ching Kwan Lee) of Reclaiming Chinese Society: Politics of Redistribution, Recognition, and Representation (Forthcoming, Routledge).

中国，这个古老与现代并存的国度，正在经历着人类历史上最大规模的移民热潮。自上世纪改革开放以来的30余年间，伴随着城市挖掘机的轰鸣声，一座座新兴城镇拔地而起。在这30年中，中国的大小城市已容纳了五亿新增居民。到2030年时，这个数字将达到十亿，占全球人口的八分之一。
中国，早已启动了全面城镇化进程的“和谐号”快车，其承载的是亿万中国人的希望之梦，以及说不尽、道不完的个中故事。
在中国，城镇化发展带来的，是社会结构的急剧变化。它打破了城乡二元化的平静，在勾起了人们欲望的同时，也强迫着大批农民背井离乡，远离土地，到城市去寻觅自己的生机。这些城市移民者们的生存之路，与中国不断深入的城镇化发展一样，走得并不平坦。
本书结合国内外媒体报道和新近研究成果，以一个在中国居住多年的西方人的视角，对中国在城镇化中取得巨大成就的同时，却未能从中获取充分的经济及社会回报，进行了冷静、理性地分析。最后得出结论：中国在城镇化进程中，务必要寻找到更健康、更具有包容性，也更持久的城市发展模式，只有这样，中国的城市才能真正实现文明，并将超越美国，成为世界上最大的经济体。

本书用迷人的笔触，以十九世纪的政治和社会革命为背景，透过歌德、马克思、陀思妥耶夫斯等人的主要作品，向我们展示了一幅充满矛盾和暧昧不明的现代世界画面。通过重新阐释马克思和深入思考罗伯特·摩西对现代城市生活的影响，作者标示出了二十世纪及其以后的发展轨迹。他得出的结论是，适应不断的变化是可能的，建设真正现代社会的希望也正是在这里。

巴黎一直是世界上最有影响力的城市，但它却是在“第二帝国”时期才摇身成为我们今日所知的现代性样板。在1848到1871年两次失败的革命之间，巴黎经历了一场惊人的转变，俗称“巴黎大改造”。奥斯曼男爵，传奇的巴黎首长，一手打造巴黎的外观，以今日巴黎四处可见的林荫大道，取代了昔日的中世纪城市面貌，成就了今日如梦如幻的巴黎。这段时期也兴起了以高度发达的金融业为主体的新资本主义形式，以及现代的大众消费文化。城市外貌及社会景观的剧变，带来崭新的现代主义文化，同时也导致巴黎沿着阶级的界线断裂，结果是1871年巴黎公社的建立，以及随后的血腥镇压。哈维的全景式观照与戏剧式的叙述，使得阅读本书一直充满着张力。本书堪与卡尔•休斯克《世纪末的维也纳》媲美，是研究现代都市兴起的历史杰作。
推荐——
当你阅读奥斯曼的、巴尔扎克的，以及哈维的巴黎的时候，你可能会忽然意识到自己身边发生的类似情景。或许，你自己的城市，也曾经有过，或正在经受着：痛苦的“创造性破坏”的过程。
——唐晓峰，北京大学城市与环境学院历史地理研究所教授
本雅明用意象蒙太奇重构了“巴黎，十九世纪的首都”，让我们置身于闲逛者、“波希米亚人”、拾荒者、妓女之中，行走在拱廊、林荫大道乃至街垒之间。大卫·哈维给出的是更冷峻的分析和论证：“巴黎，现代性之都”与其说是现代人间天城蓝图的实现，不如说是帝国和资本的联手杰作。从本雅明到哈维，我们看到了西方左翼的巴黎研究从文化批评到政治经济分析的深化。
──刘北成，清华大学历史系教授
哈维的巴黎是对本雅明的巴黎的补充，而不是一种对抗。本雅明的巴黎，看上去像是美学；而哈维的巴黎，是政治经济学。本雅明的拱廊计划无法效仿，而哈维的研究可以说是历史地理学的完美一课。本雅明是难以望其项背的天才，哈维则是一个能让众人学习的典范。
——汪民安，北京外国语大学外国文学研究所教授
持续十七年的巴黎大改造，将贫苦的老巴黎人驱赶至郊区，换来一个光鲜的“现代性之都”，随后巴黎公社革命爆发，二者有何内在联系？当贫困在郊区被“世袭”下来，2005年巴黎北郊的穷孩子走上街头焚烧富人的汽车，2007年郊区青年再次暴动，甚至端起了猎枪——“巴黎骚乱”，这场现代巴黎的“样板戏”一次次上演的时候，我脑海里浮现的，还是那次大改造的影子。一百多年前，让老巴黎天翻地覆的铁铲，所制造的贫富分区等“遗产”，对今日之城市动荡，负有怎样的责任？我想在这本书中找到的答案。
——王军，新华社高级记者，著有《城记》《采访本上的城市》