Broke
Hardship and Resilience in a City of Broken Promises
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Broke
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Narrated by:
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Teri Schnaubelt
About this listen
Bankruptcy and the austerity it represents have become a common "solution" for struggling American cities. What do the spending cuts and limited resources do to the lives of city residents? In Broke, Jodie Adams Kirshner follows seven Detroiters as they navigate life during and after their city's bankruptcy. Reggie loses his savings trying to make a habitable home for his family. Cindy fights drug use, prostitution, and dumping on her block. Lola commutes two hours a day to her suburban job. For them, financial issues are mired within the larger ramifications of poor urban policies, restorative negligence on the state and federal level and - even before the decision to declare Detroit bankrupt in 2013 - the root causes of a city's fiscal demise.
Broke looks at what municipal distress means, not just on paper but in practical - and personal - terms. More than 40 percent of Detroit's 700,000 residents fall below the poverty line. Post-bankruptcy, they struggle with a broken real estate market, school system, and job market - and their lives have not improved.
Detroit is emblematic. Kirshner makes a powerful argument that cities are never quite given the aid that they need by either the state or federal government for their residents to survive, not to mention flourish. Success for all America's citizens depends on equity of opportunity.
©2019 Jodie Adams Kirshner (P)2021 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Amazing book - I hope it changes things and mobilizes people to take action!
- By WeaverDreams on 10-20-19
By: Aaron Glantz
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The Unwinding
- An Inner History of the New America
- By: George Packer
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 932
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 799
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Story4 out of 5 stars 805
In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives. The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Can't understand the low ratings!
- By Janet Pittman Henley on 05-27-13
By: George Packer
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Glass House
- The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town
- By: Brian Alexander
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
The Anchor Hocking Glass Company, once the world's largest maker of glass tableware, was the base on which Lancaster's society was built. As Glass House unfolds, bankruptcy looms. With access to the company and its leaders, and Lancaster's citizens, Alexander shows how financial engineering took hold in the 1980s, accelerated in the 21st century, and wrecked the company.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What really happened to the American Dream?
- By Bill on 05-10-17
By: Brian Alexander
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High-Risers
- Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing
- By: Ben Austen
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 120
Built in the 1940s atop an infamous Italian slum, Cabrini-Green grew to 23 towers and a population of 20,000 - all of it packed onto just 70 acres a few blocks from Chicago's ritzy Gold Coast. Cabrini-Green became synonymous with crime, squalor, and the failure of government. For the many who lived there, it was also a much-needed resource - it was home. By 2011, every high-rise had been razed, the island of black poverty engulfed by the white affluence around it, the families dispersed.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Little mention of accountability of the people getting the housing
- By Steve D Renz on 05-15-18
By: Ben Austen
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Boom, Bust, Exodus
- The Rust Belt, the Maquilas, and a Tale of Two Cities
- By: Chad Broughton
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24
In 2002, the town of Galesburg, a slowly declining Rustbelt city of 33,000 in western Illinois, learned that it would soon lose its largest factory, a Maytag refrigerator plant that had anchored Galesburg's social and economic life for decades. Workers at the plant earned $15.14 an hour, had good insurance, and were assured a solid retirement. In 2004, the plant was relocated to Reynosa, Mexico, where workers sometimes spent 13-hour days assembling refrigerators for $1.10 an hour.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Story I thought I Knew
- By Meek84 on 07-08-18
By: Chad Broughton
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The South Side
- A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation
- By: Natalie Y. Moore
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
In this intelligent and highly important narrative, Chicago native Natalie Moore shines a light on contemporary segregation on the South Side of Chicago through reported essays, showing the lives of these communities through the stories of people who live in them. The South Side shows the important impact of Chicago's historic segregation and the ongoing policies that keep it that way.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Eyeopening!
- By Ladybug on 09-07-16
By: Natalie Y. Moore
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Other People's Money
- Inside the Housing Crisis and the Demise of the Greatest Real Estate Deal Ever Made
- By: Charles V. Bagli
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4 out of 5 stars 94
In just over three years, real estate giant Tishman Speyer and its partner, BlackRock, lost billions of investors' dollars on a single deal. In Other People's Money, Charles V. Bagli, the New York Times reporter who first broke the story of the sale of Stuyvesant Town - Peter Cooper Village takes listeners inside the most spectacular failure in real estate history, using this single deal as a lens to see how and why the real estate crisis happened.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Solid
- By BryanW on 05-22-24
By: Charles V. Bagli
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The Working Poor
- Invisible in America
- By: David K. Shipler
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 15 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 181
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 149
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Story4 out of 5 stars 150
Nobody who works hard should be poor in America, writes Pulitzer Prize-winner David Shipler. Clear-headed, rigorous, and compassionate, he journeys deeply into the lives of individual store clerks and factory workers, farm laborers and sweat-shop seamstresses, illegal immigrants in menial jobs and Americans saddled with immense student loans and paltry wages. They are known as the working poor.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Textbook Perfect Discussion of the Problem
- By Cynthia on 07-28-12
By: David K. Shipler
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Becoming Ms. Burton
- From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women
- By: Susan Burton, Cari Lynn
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 274
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 240
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Story5 out of 5 stars 242
Susan Burton's world changed in an instant when her five-year-old son was killed by a van driving down their street. Consumed by grief and without access to professional help, Susan self-medicated, becoming addicted first to cocaine then to crack. As a resident of South Los Angeles, a Black community under siege in the War on Drugs, it was but a matter of time before Susan was arrested. She cycled in and out of prison for over 15 years; never was she offered therapy or treatment for addiction.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Compelling
- By Jean on 06-18-17
By: Susan Burton, and others
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The End of the Suburbs
- Where the American Dream is Moving
- By: Leigh Gallagher
- Narrated by: Jessica Geffen
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4 out of 5 stars 65
For nearly 70 years, the suburbs were as American as apple pie. But in recent years things have started to change. An epic housing crisis revealed existing problems with this unique pattern of development, while the steady pull of long-simmering economic, societal and demographic forces has culminated in a Perfect Storm that has led to a profound shift in the way we desire to live. In The End of the Suburbs journalist Leigh Gallagher traces the rise and fall of American suburbia from the stately railroad suburbs that sprung up outside American cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries to current-day sprawling exurbs.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Informative, but the title is a lie
- By Marie on 08-27-13
By: Leigh Gallagher
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Richistan
- A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich
- By: Robert Frank
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 207
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4 out of 5 stars 89
The rich have always been different from you and me, but this revealing and funny journey through Richistan entertainingly shows that they are more different than ever. Richistanis have 400-foot-yachts, 30,000-square-foot homes, house staffs of more than 100, and their own "arborists". They're also different from Old Money, and have torn down blue-blood institutions to build their own shining empire.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Ho Hum....being rich is work!
- By Scarlett on 06-16-07
By: Robert Frank
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The Vapors
- A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capital of Vice
- By: David Hill
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 219
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 180
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Story4 out of 5 stars 179
Back in the days before Vegas was big, when the Mob was at its peak and neon lights were but a glimmer on the horizon, a little Southern town styled itself as a premier destination for the American leisure class. Hot Springs, Arkansas was home to healing waters, Art Deco splendor, and America's original national park - as well as horse racing, nearly a dozen illegal casinos, countless backrooms and brothels, and some of the country’s most bald-faced criminals.
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1 out of 5 stars
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If you don’t live in Arkansas…
- By JohnFern0813 on 08-14-20
By: David Hill
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The Farmer’s Lawyer
- The North Dakota Nine and the Fight to Save the Family Farm
- By: Sarah Vogel
- Narrated by: Sarah Vogel
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story5 out of 5 stars 42
The unforgettable true story of a young lawyer's impossible legal battle to stop the federal government from foreclosing on thousands of family farmers.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Book!!
- By Mindy Knupp on 03-13-22
By: Sarah Vogel
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Tokyo Underworld
- The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan
- By: Robert Whiting
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
In the ashes of postwar Japan lay a gold mine for certain opportunistic, expatriate Americans. Addicted to the volatile energy of Tokyo's freewheeling underworld, they formed ever-shifting but ever-profitable alliances with warring Japanese and Korean gangsters. At the center of this world was Nick Zappetti, an ex-marine from New York City who arrived in Tokyo in 1945 and whose restaurant soon became the rage throughout the city and the chief watering hole for celebrities, diplomats, sports figures, and mobsters.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Man with a fork in a world of soup
- By Kindle Customer on 09-01-20
By: Robert Whiting
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The Shanghai Free Taxi
- Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China
- By: Frank Langfitt
- Narrated by: Frank Langfitt
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 121
In this adventurous, original book, NPR correspondent Frank Langfitt describes how he created a free taxi service - offering rides in exchange for illuminating conversation - to go beyond the headlines and get to know a wide range of colorful, compelling characters representative of the new China. They include folks like "Beer", a slippery salesman who tries to sell Langfitt a used car; Rocky, a farm boy turned Shanghai lawyer; and Chen, who runs an underground Christian church and moves his family to America in search of a better, freer life.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Too political
- By dah551 on 06-26-19
By: Frank Langfitt
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New York, New York, New York
- Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation
- By: Thomas Dyja
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy, Thomas Dyja - introduction
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 164
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 143
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 141
Dangerous, filthy, and falling apart, garbage piled on its streets and entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble; New York’s terrifying, if liberating, state of nature in 1978 also made it the capital of American culture. Over the next thirty-plus years, though, it became a different place - kinder and meaner, richer and poorer, more like America and less like what it had always been.
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5 out of 5 stars
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OMG...right on 👍👍👍👍👍
- By howie wine on 04-04-21
By: Thomas Dyja
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Methland
- The Death and Life of an American Small Town
- By: Nick Reding
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 882
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 469
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Story4 out of 5 stars 475
Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered to be the most dangerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more true than in the small towns of the American heartland. Methland tells the story of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), which, like thousands of other small towns across the country, has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy, and an out-migration of people.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully written, but insubstantial
- By Flavius Krakdaddius on 02-10-10
By: Nick Reding