Urban Ills: Twenty-first-Century Complexities of Urban Living in Global Contexts

by Carol Camp Yeakey (Editor), Vetta L. Sanders Thompson (Editor), Anjanette Wells (Editor)

Overview

Urban Ills: Twenty First Century Complexities of Urban Living in Global Contexts is a collection of original research focused on critical challenges and dilemmas to living in cities. Volume 2 is devoted to the myriad issues involving urban health and the dynamics of urban communities and their neighborhoods. The editors define the ecology of urban living as the relationship and adjustment of humans to a highly dense, diverse, and complex environment. This approach examines the nexus between the distribution of human groups with reference to material resources and the consequential social, political, economic, and cultural patterns which evolve as a result of the sufficiency or insufficiency of those material resources. They emphasize the most vulnerable populations suffering during and after the recession in the United States and around the world, and the chapters examine traditional issues of housing and employment with respect to these communities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739186367
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	12/13/2013
Edition description:	Volume 2
Pages:	366
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 6.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Carol Camp Yeakey is the founding director of the Washington University Center on Urban Research and Policy and the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Urban Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. She also holds faculty appointments as professor of education; of International & Area Studies; of American Culture Studies; and, of Urban Studies, on the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Vetta Sanders Thompson is associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis, George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Institute of Public Health and Urban Studies. Her research has focused on racial identity, psychosocial implications of race and culture for mental health, health communication and promotion, health services utilization, and determinates of health and mental health disparities. Dr. Thompson has over 70 published articles, chapters and reviews; including 47 peer reviewed articles ranging from the development and application of measurement tools to assess ethnic/racial identity, racism, discrimination, and stressful life events, to socio-cultural determinants and correlates of health and mental health in African Americans.

Anjanette Wells is assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis’ George Warren Brown School of Social Work, a scholar with the University’s Institute for Public Health, and an affiliated faculty with Urban Studies. Her research centers on cancer disparities and community engagement, with a common thread of interest in health behaviors and adherence, prevention and outreach interventions, and recruitment and retention to research and practice among low-income and minorities. She has published her research in Patient Education & Counseling, Psychiatric Services, General Hospital Psychiatry, Cancer, and Psychosocial Oncology.

Table of Contents

Dedication Page
Preface
Preface for Volume Two
Introduction
Section Three: Urban Health
Chapter Sixteen: ‘Place Matters:’ Contextualizing Health Using a Social Determinants Model
Chapter Seventeen: “Social Dis(ease) of African American Males and health”
Chapter Eighteen: “Economic Contractions’ Neglected Impact on African Americans’ Mental Health”
Chapter Nineteen: “Urban Poverty and Cardiovascular Disease Health”
Chapter Twenty: “’Coming to America:’ Mental Health Needs Among Undocumented Mexican Immigrants”
Chapter Twenty -one: “The Intersect of Poverty and Health: Are Race and Class Far Behind?”
Chapter Twenty-two: “The Flint (Michigan) Adolescent Study: A Longitudinal Examination of Social Support And Achievement Motivational Beliefs of African American Adolescents”
Chapter Twenty-three: “Does Area Regeneration Improve Residents’ Health and Well-being? A New Methodological Approach to Measuring the Health Impacts of Area Regeneration in Scotland”
Chapter Twenty-four: “The Twenty First Century Gold Coast and Slum”
Chapter Twenty-five: “Another Border to Cross: Mexican Immigrant Families and Obstacles to Neighborhood Integration in the Suburbs”
Chapter Twenty-six: “The Relationship Between Mass Incidents and Social Inequality in the Social Transformation of China”
Chapter Twenty-seven: “Housing and Identity in Postcolonial Portugal”
Chapter Twenty-eight: “Exploring the Social Outcome of Brownfield Regeneration in Different types of Deprived Communities: Evidence from Manchester, England”
Chapter Twenty-nine: “Disasters as Hyper-Marginalization: Social Abandonment in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans”
Chapter Thirty: “Selling Out: The Study of the Transition from Rental Control to Market Rate Housing in New York City”
Chapter Thirty-one: “Epilogue: Confronting the Dilemmas of Urban Living in Twenty First Century Global Contexts”

Editorial Reviews

The chapters cover all of the 'social problems' that impact urban life, from housing shortages (chapter 4) to immigrant integration in suburbs (chapter 25) to gentrification (chapter 10) to the decline in public schools (chapter 12). There is even a chapter on human trafficking (chapter 14). The editors include a study of post-Hurricane Katrina Lower Ninth Ward problems for low-income residents in New Orleans (chapter 29).. . .This social problems approach connected to the editors' interest in social justice drives this wide-ranging two volumes of mostly academic research on the ups and downs of the 20th-century urban U.S.. . .Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students in sociology and business; professional urban planners interested in understanding a wide array of urban social ills.

Choice

Urban Ills takes a very effective multidisciplinary approach including the utilization of theories from economics, sociology, psychology, education, health/medicine, public policy, and other disciplines. Similarly, the research methods used by authors include everything from reviews of the literature to case studies to empirical research. The result is a very important collection of chapters that will have appeal to a wide variety of readers. Academics and policy makersinterested in urban issues will find this book useful.

Eddie M. Clark

The chapters cover all of the 'social problems' that impact urban life, from housing shortages (chapter 4) to immigrant integration in suburbs (chapter 25) to gentrification (chapter 10) to the decline in public schools (chapter 12). There is even a chapter on human trafficking (chapter 14). The editors include a study of post-Hurricane Katrina Lower Ninth Ward problems for low-income residents in New Orleans (chapter 29).. . .This social problems approach connected to the editors' interest in social justice drives this wide-ranging two volumes of mostly academic research on the ups and downs of the 20th-century urban U.S.. . .Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students in sociology and business; professional urban planners interested in understanding a wide array of urban social ills.

Choice Reviews

Hurricane Katrina, mortgage foreclosures, racism, human trafficking, mass transit, HIV AIDS, gentrification, failing schools, and chronic unemployment are used to weave a complex, revealing tapestry that lays bare the ills of contemporary urbanization. We see "Tales of Two Cities"—with the best and worst of times—repeated around the globe in the vast economic, social, and health disparities that separate rich from poor. A thoughtful, revealing study of how context, culture, and history combine to shape life chances in 21st century cities. Urban Ills: Twenty First Century Complexities of Urban Living in Global Contexts is destined to become a classic.

Walter R. Allen

Poverty and inequality are areas sociology scholars have examined for generations, but these areas are still relatively unexplored by psychologists. These two volumes [Urban Ills Volume 1 and 2] are critical texts to help psychologists better situate individual psychological outcomes within micro and macro ecologies. Urban Ills clearly captures and describes the impact of economic globalization that benefits few but have consequences for many.. . .These two volumes provide readers with a context with which to understand and conceptualize the impact of urbanization within a global context. Globalization is sometimes solely equated with expanded opportunities and wealth, but in these two volumes, the authors puncture this myth: Globalization also means increased inequality, poverty, and marginalization. What the reader comes away with is a new appreciation for the complex relationship between these two perspectives, which is essentially the conundrum of global capitalism.

PsycCRITIQUES

Hurricane Katrina, mortgage foreclosures, racism, human trafficking, mass transit, HIV AIDS, gentrification, failing schools, and chronic unemployment are used to weave a complex, revealing tapestry that lays bare the ills of contemporary urbanization. We see "Tales of Two Cities"—with the best and worst of times—repeated around the globe in the vast economic, social, and health disparities that separate rich from poor. A thoughtful, revealing study of how context, culture, and history combine to shape life chances in 21st century cities. Urban Ills: Twenty First Century Complexities of Urban Living in Global Contexts is destined to become a classic.

From the Publisher

The chapters cover all of the 'social problems' that impact urban life, from housing shortages (chapter 4) to immigrant integration in suburbs (chapter 25) to gentrification (chapter 10) to the decline in public schools (chapter 12). There is even a chapter on human trafficking (chapter 14). The editors include a study of post-Hurricane Katrina Lower Ninth Ward problems for low-income residents in New Orleans (chapter 29).. . .This social problems approach connected to the editors' interest in social justice drives this wide-ranging two volumes of mostly academic research on the ups and downs of the 20th-century urban U.S.. . .Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students in sociology and business; professional urban planners interested in understanding a wide array of urban social ills.

CHOICE