The Fight to Save the Town

Reimagining Discarded America

By: Michelle Wilde Anderson

Narrated by: Jean Ann Douglass

A sweeping and eye-opening study of wealth inequality and the dismantling of local government in four working-class US cities that passionately argues for reinvestment in people-centered leadership and offers “a welcome reminder of what government can accomplish if given the chance” (San Francisco Chronicle).

Decades of cuts to local government amidst rising concentrations of poverty have wreaked havoc on communities left behind by the modern economy. Some of these discarded places are rural. Others are big cities, small cities, or historic suburbs. Some vote blue, others red. Some are the most diverse communities in America, while others are nearly all white, all Latino, or all Black. All are routinely trashed by outsiders for their poverty and their politics. Mostly, their governments are just broke. Forty years after the anti-tax revolution began protecting wealthy taxpayers and their cities, our high-poverty cities and counties have run out of services to cut, properties to sell, bills to defer, and risky loans to take.

In this “astute and powerful vision for improving America” (Publishers Weekly), urban law expert and author Michelle Wilde Anderson offers unsparing, humanistic portraits of the hardships left behind in four such places. But this book is not a eulogy or a lament. Instead, Anderson travels to four blue-collar communities that are poor, broke, and progressing. Networks of leaders and residents in these places are facing down some of the hardest challenges in American poverty today. In Stockton, California, locals are finding ways, beyond the police department, to reduce gun violence and treat the trauma it leaves behind. In Josephine County, Oregon, community leaders have enacted new taxes to support basic services in a rural area with fiercely anti-government politics. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, leaders are figuring out how to improve job security and wages in an era of backbreaking poverty for the working class. And a social movement in Detroit, Michigan, is pioneering ways to stabilize low-income housing after a wave of foreclosures and housing loss.

Our smallest governments shape people’s safety, comfort, and life chances. For decades, these governments have no longer just reflected inequality—they have helped drive it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Anderson shows that “if we learn to save our towns, we will also be learning to save ourselves” (The New York Times Book Review).

©2022 Michelle Wilde Anderson. All rights reserved. Lucille Clifton, "why some people be mad at me sometimes" from How to Carry Water: Selected Poems. Copyright ©1987 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of BOA Editions Ltd., boaeditions.org. (P)2022 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Compelling Book - wonderful listen

This is an important and brilliant work. In depth journalism exploring important communities and bringing to light new solutions and approaches to some of America’s toughest challenges. Important work for public policy makers - but also for caring people who think and care about their fellow Americans from all walks of life.

Great book & narration about communities & cities

If you are interested in making stronger neighborhoods, good communities, and sustainable cities -- this book is full of examples, human stories, and connections for you.
The narrator does a great job, very listenable and engaging.

An honest and true portrait of my Lawrence and its true potential

Like the author says, this is not a policy book, but it should be. It should be something those in charge of writing policy to benefit places like Lawrence MA, should take note of. Worth reading for those who care or want to care about equity and equality.

Delta Towns

Very good tools for community building. The issues address provides an eye-opening vortex
To understanding communities an the day to day challenges.

Many cities are in this same position.

This book demonstrated how it takes people that care about their town to stand up as a group and make changes. Politics is only as good as the people elected.

I would recommend this book to people in any city or town that want to make a difference in the way politicians act and make polices.