Michael Katz and Devin Fergus Discuss Racial Inequality and Urban Poverty

Last Friday, we hosted author and University of Pennsylvania history professor Michael Katz to talk about his new book Why Don’t American Cities Burn? Devin Fergus, a professor of U.S. history at Hunter College, offered his reactions to Katz’s book and Reid Cramer served as moderator. Cramer began the event by drawing on the provocative title to look at the history of racial tensions in American cities throughout time. Cities across the U.S. experienced race riots in the 1960s (and earlier) in response to pervasive civil rights injustices, but, despite continued racial inequality, cities have not seen this scale of violence in more recent decades. In addition to introducing this paradox, Cramer also noted that one of the profound struggles for anti-poverty advocates and policymakers is to address the phenomenon of social and economic exclusion that characterizes some urban areas.

Professor Katz began his talk by explaining how the economic, demographic and spatial changes of the twentieth century shaped American cities. He suggests that the political landscape at the local, state, and federal level has shifted increasingly to the right over the years, marked by an overreliance on “market based solutions to social problems.”  The prologue of Katz’s book chronicles the story of two Black men from Philadelphia’s most impoverished areas and the sequence of events that led Katz to serve on the murder trial of one for killing the other in a dispute over five dollars. He found that this experience struck him as a clear manifestation of many of the issues he has spent his career studying – the rise of the welfare state, the social and economic marginalization of communities of color, and the spatial shifts that have come to define our cities. Social and economic changes in the U.S. and globally during the twentieth century led to the “emergence of a new urban form.” For example, suburbanization, the rise of city financing through property tax, and the phenomenon of private services for public functions have all profoundly altered the urban (and suburban) landscapes along racial and class lines.

The story of economic inequality for Black Americans is a long and complicated one. Katz commented on the noticeable gender gap that has emerged in Black communities – namely that Black women are attending college and achieving upward economic mobility in greater numbers than their male counterparts. He also points to the disparities in property and asset ownership that have contributed so greatly to a racial wealth gap. Katz also looked at the concept of the “consumer’s republic,” a term coined by Lizabeth Cohen to describe how mass consumption becomes a means to full participation in “mainstream” (read: white) society. The ability to afford the “material symbols” of American life and process of buying into this notion of citizenship “undermined Black protest by shifting the focus of Black demands to public accommodation and market access.” Meanwhile, governments at all levels introduced “new and heightened techniques for repression and control” of low-income people and communities of color.

In the final portion of his talk, Katz asks: “Have the changes in ideas about poverty and strategies for its alleviation accompanied the transformation of American cities?” He describes how popular discourse shifted away from conversations about the urban “underclass” (a term that Katz explains defined behavior and served as the basis for tropes of exactly who qualified as the “deserving poor.”) Instead, conversations began to revolve around four new concepts in the anti-poverty arena: 1) rebuilding markets in urban areas with the poor targeted as consumers 2) “microfinance, the poor as entrepreneurs” 3) “asset building, the poor as savers” and 4) “conditional cash transfers, the poor as rational actors.” Katz is skeptical about how successful these models have been, but acknowledges that they have disrupted “pathological stereotypes of the poor.”

Katz concludes by discussing the key takeaways from the book. First, he wants readers to gain “an understanding of urban transformation and its consequences.” Secondly, he urges a critique of “statements that attribute poverty to the failing of the individual.” The concept of the “undeserving poor,” he says, is “intellectually bankrupt.” Next, he advocates for “an appreciation of the role of government and a healthy skepticism about the ability of privatization and policies based on market models to solve major problems.” Lastly, Katz rejects the idea that there is no alternative to the current status quo of policy and social conditions and cites the Occupy Movement as evidence that creative re-envisioning of our system is indeed taking place.

Devin Fergus remarked briefly on some of the key themes from Katz’s book. Specifically, he was drawn to Katz’s work on finding a balance between the private and public sectors, agreeing that there are significant limits to the effectiveness of privatization. He also praised Katz on his ability to disrupt the prevailing narrative of Black poverty and move away from a naturalized understanding of poverty. Questions from the audience focused on a range of issues, including the role of both the Black and white political elite in maintaining the status quo, the differences between immigration trends in Europe and the United States, and the challenge of incorporating discourse about white or other non-Black poverty into Katz’s frame. You can check out tweets from the event under the hashtag #urbanhope and view the archived webcast here.