The Injustice of Place by Edin, Shaefer, and Nelson

THE INJUSTICE OF PLACE by Kathryn J. Edin, H. Luke Shaefer and Timothy Nelson is a work of non-fiction which is all about “Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America.” Professors at Princeton and the University of Michigan respectively, Edin and Shaefer collaborated previously on $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America. Here, they are joined by Nelson (also at Princeton) in a thorough review of America’s “internal colonies,” including traditions of violence, political corruption, revolt and retribution, and the potential for healing. They have produced a fascinating study which focuses on place-based disadvantage. In addition to income, they look at low birth weights, life expectancy, and inter-generational mobility, creating an Index of Deep Disadvantage, intentionally named to reflect injustice and unfair circumstances. They found that many of the most disadvantaged communities were rural, predominantly Native American, and/or located in Appalachia, South Texas, or the Southeast and these researchers saw a pattern: “a history of intensive resource extraction and profound human exploitation not seen to the same degree elsewhere in the United States.” The effort by their team is impressive, including on the ground visits to “a total of 155 locations, more than 75 percent of the 200 [places of deepest disadvantage]” and extensive appendices with roughly one-fourth of the book devoted to notes. It is gratifying to see the positive comments about future policy implications and social science scholarship from economist Raj Chetty and award-wining author Matthew Desmond (Evicted and Poverty, by America). THE INJUSTICE OF PLACE also received starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly.