The Divided City

April 2, 2018
Mallach (Bringing Buildings Back) digs into the dark side of America’s urban revival in this uneven analysis of the forces reshaping “legacy” cities—the Clevelands, Milwaukees, and Buffalos of the heartland, formerly industrial cities hollowed out by suburbanization and white flight in the 1960s and ’70s—rather than the major coastal cities that have received the most attention from others investigating urban renewal. Mallach describes how gentrifying areas of legacy cities have attracted an influx of college graduates with the skills to thrive in the postindustrial knowledge economy, who draw trendy coffee shops and revamp neighborhoods around anchor institutions such as universities. At the same time, he argues, middle-class and poor neighborhoods in the same cities are sliding downhill, buffeted by the subprime mortgage crisis of the 2000s, structural economic changes, and the legacies of racial segregation. For every gentrifying neighborhood like Baltimore’s Fell’s Point or St. Louis’s Washington Avenue, Mallach writes, many more are falling into a cycle of physical deterioration, out-migration, and abandonment. Mallach points to localized infrastructure spending, job creation, and education as possible solutions to this urban crisis. While the book’s subject matter is timely, it relies heavily on synthesizing other authors’ arguments, resulting in an unfocused and somewhat derivative analysis of the issues confronting cities.

May 15, 2018
For all of the talk of recent urban revival, only a tiny proportion of revived neighborhoods have seen the benefits, while the vast majority have continued to experience a precipitous decline. This startling observation drives Mallach's deeply researched survey of the dual processes of revival and decline in American cities large and small. Drawing from historical, sociological, and economic research, Mallach explains how deindustrialization, demographic change, and craft-beer-sipping millennials have transformed the urban environment. He surveys the mixed record of efforts to spark revival, from community development corporations in Newark to urban greening in Detroit, and draws on his own professional experiences as a city planner in Trenton, New Jersey. The breadth of information almost overwhelms the big idea, but certain chapters, particularly one on gentrification, captivate. Ultimately, Mallach writes, the middle is disappearing in cities, a profound shift apparent in American society broadly. In light of such a starkly diagnosed problem, the author's modest policy recommendations confound. But for readers looking for an introduction to important issues facing cities today, this book will serve admirably.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)