Description
Book SynopsisNamed one of the best nonfiction books of 2023 by Publishers Weekly! There is a familiar narrative about American suburbs: after 1945, white residents left cities for leafy, affluent subdivisions and the prosperity they seemed to embody. In Levittown's Shadow tells us there's more to this story, offering an eye-opening account of diverse, poor residents living and working in those same neighborhoods. Tim Keogh shows how public policies produced both suburban plenty and deprivationand why ignoring suburban poverty doomed efforts to reduce inequality. Keogh focuses on the suburbs of Long Island, home to Levittown, often considered the archetypal suburb. Here military contracts subsidized well-paid employment welding airplanes or filing paperwork, while weak labor laws impoverished suburbanites who mowed lawns, built houses, scrubbed kitchen floors, and stocked supermarket shelves. Federal mortgage programs helped some families buy orderly single-family homes and enter the middle cla
Trade Review“Keogh provides an accessible and convincing synthesis of statistics, institutional history, and sociological analysis. It’s a landmark account.” * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *
“A brilliant analysis of suburban poverty.” * Library Journal *
“
In Levittown’s Shadow shows us how the postwar US suburb was both better and worse than you might think, establishing what we might even characterize as a social-democratic welfare state for some, but one built on the exploitation and immiseration of others. This excellent book thus complicates our histories of the character and development of the US welfare state, undermines the myth of the poverty-free suburb, and deepens our understandings of the long roots of today’s widespread suburban poverty.” -- Stephen Pimpare, University of New Hampshire
“There are more people living below the poverty line in suburbs than in urban centers today. Keogh pulls back the curtain on the longer history of this suburban poverty, explaining how Americans embraced suburbs as exceptionally prosperous spaces while also writing policies that made inequality a core component of suburban growth.
In Levittown’s Shadow is a compelling, urgent study—one that points a way out of this complex history toward a more equitable, just, and thriving future.” -- Nancy Kwak, University of California San Diego
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. The Future Detroit of the East
From Residential to Industrial Suburbia
2. The Crabgrass Wasn’t Always Greener
Poverty Amidst Suburban Plenty
3. Attics, Basements, and Sheds
Housing the Poor during the Suburban Boom
4. Fair without Full Employment
The Limits of Equal Opportunity
5. The Suburban War on Poverty
6. Shouldering Their “Fair Share”
Why the Suburbs Could Not Resolve the “Urban Crisis”
7. The Long Island Miracle
Suburbia into the Next Century
Conclusion
Lessons from Long Island’s Past
Acknowledgments
Appendix
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index
