There Goes the Neighborhood: Racial, Ethnic, and Class Tensions in Four Chicago Neighborhoods and Their Meaning for America

From one of America’s most admired sociologists and urban policy advisers, There Goes the Neighborhood is a long-awaited look at how race, class, and ethnicity influence one of Americans’ most personal choices—where we choose to live. The result of a three-year study of four working- and lower-middle class neighborhoods in Chicago, these riveting first-person narratives and the meticulous research which accompanies them reveal honest yet disturbing realities—ones that remind us why the elusive American dream of integrated neighborhoods remains a priority of race relations in our time.

William Julius Wilson is the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University. He is also the author of Power, Racism, and Privilege; The Declining Significance of Race; The Truly Disadvantaged; and The Bridge over the Racial Divide. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Richard P. Taub is the Paul Klapper Professor of Social Sciences and Public Policy at the University of Chicago, where he is also professor of sociology and human development. His previous books include Community Capitalism and Paths of Neighborhood Change.