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The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America
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).
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).
368 pages, Hardcover
Published June 21, 2022
59 people are currently reading
1066 people want to read
About the author
Michelle Wilde Anderson
3 books6 followersMichelle Wilde Anderson is a professor of property, local government, and environmental justice at Stanford Law School. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Yale Law Journal, and other publications.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
December 9, 2022
What an odd book. Anderson, by her own account, set out to write a scholarly treatment of cities facing broad poverty, in a range of economic contexts (from rural Oregon to Detroit), and then decided while doing the research and reporting, that the true story was the bottom-up organizing that is necessary to bring back struggling places block-by-block, especially in the absence of the resources needed for top-down government-led revitalization. So, the book became portraiture of relatively feel-good efforts to claw back some quality of life. As a result, it's kind of betwixt-and-between in genre. There's a lot to like, but it's hard to take too much away from the book, since that kind of organizing is almost inherently local, personal, site-specific. Anderson is a great lawyer/scholar, and I almost feel her skills are wasted on this book, not because the conclusions are wrong, but because her value-add is low.
September 5, 2022
Being a native Detroiter, I was curious if this would be yet another outsider’s, “Ain’t it Awful” version of my favorite city. I was also curious of what Stockton, CA, Lawerence, MA and Josephine county, OR, could have in common with Detroit. Michelle Wilde Anderson does a thorough analysis of how all four of her focus “towns” were made up of hard working-class residents who struggle with disinvestment, (Detroit, not surprisingly, on an industrial scale) and easy blame-the-victim attacks by outsiders, including their own state governments.
However, she also highlights the resilience and creativity of the residents of these towns who realize that no cavalry will be riding to their rescue. She makes a strong case for not waiting for a messiah, magic project or corporation, (which inevitably will fail to meet most expectations), or for the right mix of new residents to arrive. (Hipsters are nice to have, but won’t save any town.) Instead, she insists it is critical to invest in the residents who are there now. To make sure they can get the training, education, housing and public services that they need and deserve. Spending precious resources on attracting or keeping (bribing?) corporations will never give the returns that investments in the current residents will.
Overall, a thought-provoking, well researched and hopeful book.
However, she also highlights the resilience and creativity of the residents of these towns who realize that no cavalry will be riding to their rescue. She makes a strong case for not waiting for a messiah, magic project or corporation, (which inevitably will fail to meet most expectations), or for the right mix of new residents to arrive. (Hipsters are nice to have, but won’t save any town.) Instead, she insists it is critical to invest in the residents who are there now. To make sure they can get the training, education, housing and public services that they need and deserve. Spending precious resources on attracting or keeping (bribing?) corporations will never give the returns that investments in the current residents will.
Overall, a thought-provoking, well researched and hopeful book.
June 30, 2025
Just okay. Michelle Wilde Anderson is a public law scholar by profession, not a writer, and I found her writing comes across (perhaps as a matter of her occupation) legalistic, droning, overly detailed and detached, and her attempts to connect with the audience feel noticeably canned and awkward. I found some parts genuinely cringe-inducing and trite, such as referring to the saviors of communities as "unicorns". Anderson introduces this metaphor through an anecdote about a shirt with the phrase "Flint, now with unicorns", explaining that she found "meaning in the drawing and message anyway" because "Flint does have unicorns". She further defines a group of unicorns as a "blessing". While intended to symbolize hope and resilience, rooting this powerful metaphor in a literal t-shirt slogan isn't particularly moving.
Many of the other reviews on here praise this book for its density of information. It is genuinely important to give credit where its due; Anderson clearly (perhaps also as a matter of her occupation) has a gift for detail and was able to add a truly impressive amount of information to this book. I haven't seen many other reviews mention that this is a double-edged sword; too much detail obfuscates the overarching meaning interweaving the book's four locations, requiring the reader to work harder to connect the dots.
At times, it feels like these four locations only have adversity in common, and are in such unique circumstances that it's impossible to make sense of an overarching narrative of the 20th century that created the groundwork necessary as a root cause for the problems outlined in this book. "Deindustrialization" is used only four times in this book, while "trauma" is used 124 times. Even though the fallout resulting from an expediated transition from manufacturing to a service economy is mentioned throughout the book, it is never explicitly named as *the* foremost root cause of the inevitable, growing failure of virtually all low-income communities nationwide. As a result, it's difficult to actually make sense of what has happened, and it seems like adversity comes about from the poor decision-making by a handful of individuals, instead of a systemic issue with predictable outcomes. The book’s progressive framing also occasionally undermines its own goals. The negative portrayal of progressives' political rivals is counterproductive in a book that aims to build empathy and understanding across ideological divides.
The details in this book have two oscillating modes: information from on-the-ground interviews conducted by Anderson, and out-of-context statistics or other information that is intended to support the thesis, but often feels like a high-level book report, tagging you along a spectator's perpsective of what had occured. Anderson directly states "I googled a zillion scattered details to research this book" towards the end, and at times, it felt like I was reading the results of a Google page: disparate, high-level, low-impact, and impersonal.
At other times, data feels ham-fisted in to make a point, regardless of veracity, such as claiming that "high rates of trauma showed up in a range of health statistics, including the fact Detroiters were 50% more likely to die of heart disease". This is just irresponsible journalism. How can you assure that these health statistics are SOLELY due to trauma? It was already noted previously in the book that the average Detroiter is significantly older than the mean for Michigan, but there is no sign that the study referenced held age constant. The sheer number of confounding variables that are brushed aside instead of addressed responsibly render such statistics useless.
Anderson does a great job describing what events occurred to lead to the current. More than a few anecdotes and interviews were genuinely moving. Where details are crucially needed, but largely absent, is specifically how communities can expect to get out of bad situations. The thesis essentially states that if communities are given adequate funding, resources, and *hope*, they will roll their sleeves up and naturally get themselves out of these situations. I didn't find that particularly convincing from the text, but it is an inspiring belief, nonetheless.
Many of the other reviews on here praise this book for its density of information. It is genuinely important to give credit where its due; Anderson clearly (perhaps also as a matter of her occupation) has a gift for detail and was able to add a truly impressive amount of information to this book. I haven't seen many other reviews mention that this is a double-edged sword; too much detail obfuscates the overarching meaning interweaving the book's four locations, requiring the reader to work harder to connect the dots.
At times, it feels like these four locations only have adversity in common, and are in such unique circumstances that it's impossible to make sense of an overarching narrative of the 20th century that created the groundwork necessary as a root cause for the problems outlined in this book. "Deindustrialization" is used only four times in this book, while "trauma" is used 124 times. Even though the fallout resulting from an expediated transition from manufacturing to a service economy is mentioned throughout the book, it is never explicitly named as *the* foremost root cause of the inevitable, growing failure of virtually all low-income communities nationwide. As a result, it's difficult to actually make sense of what has happened, and it seems like adversity comes about from the poor decision-making by a handful of individuals, instead of a systemic issue with predictable outcomes. The book’s progressive framing also occasionally undermines its own goals. The negative portrayal of progressives' political rivals is counterproductive in a book that aims to build empathy and understanding across ideological divides.
The details in this book have two oscillating modes: information from on-the-ground interviews conducted by Anderson, and out-of-context statistics or other information that is intended to support the thesis, but often feels like a high-level book report, tagging you along a spectator's perpsective of what had occured. Anderson directly states "I googled a zillion scattered details to research this book" towards the end, and at times, it felt like I was reading the results of a Google page: disparate, high-level, low-impact, and impersonal.
At other times, data feels ham-fisted in to make a point, regardless of veracity, such as claiming that "high rates of trauma showed up in a range of health statistics, including the fact Detroiters were 50% more likely to die of heart disease". This is just irresponsible journalism. How can you assure that these health statistics are SOLELY due to trauma? It was already noted previously in the book that the average Detroiter is significantly older than the mean for Michigan, but there is no sign that the study referenced held age constant. The sheer number of confounding variables that are brushed aside instead of addressed responsibly render such statistics useless.
Anderson does a great job describing what events occurred to lead to the current. More than a few anecdotes and interviews were genuinely moving. Where details are crucially needed, but largely absent, is specifically how communities can expect to get out of bad situations. The thesis essentially states that if communities are given adequate funding, resources, and *hope*, they will roll their sleeves up and naturally get themselves out of these situations. I didn't find that particularly convincing from the text, but it is an inspiring belief, nonetheless.
March 14, 2023
Amazing book about community economic development! This book takes a deep dive into four case studies of urban areas that experienced immense hardships and the people and organizations who helped them redevelop from the ground up. The author provides great insights into the causes of hardships and poverty and the forces that exacerbate them. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in poverty alleviation and local government for good.
December 20, 2022
I lived in one of the areas described in the book (which is why I picked it up) and she just didn't hit the mark, making me distrust her accounts of the other places as well. The book is written very academically, which I don't mind, but in this case I know there is a treasure trove of stories that are emblematic of failed social policy (we didn't have school in 2002 on Fridays because the school district had to save money. We never got our extra days added on to the end of the year. We all hung out at home with no parents on Fridays in a town full of drugs - no bueno!!) Military recruiters were at our school everyday. There was a lot of weird and sad that she didn't touch on. I'm biased I suppose, but it just felt like she didn't fully grasp the experiences she set out to describe. Didn't hate it though.
November 25, 2022
Interesting read, but I was hoping for more details on what could be done at scale to help. The descriptions of the problems, and some of the causes is very good. Maybe every location needs its own solution. I still would have liked a little more on the how of the solutions instead of what and the who.
October 10, 2022
Anderson's book presents much more than a sobering account of challenges that face post-industrial American communities coast to coast - in "The Fight to Save the Town" she showcases the resilience and tenacity of community-based movements, and their many hard-earned successes in the face of adversity. The title sets you straight: these communities are not going away quietly or passively, but rather there is real fight in each of these places, and Anderson helps tell the stories of these towns' struggles and successes alongside their many dynamic, creative and inspiring resident community leaders.
The book is at once an intimate collection of individual portraits, as well as a text that has something to teach anyone who picks it up, whether they be a community activist seeking camaraderie and a reflection of their own strength, a student looking for inspiration in how to be of service, or anyone who wants to bravely challenge the entrenched myths about places long overlooked and attacked.
Anderson is a compelling writer, and she is supported in her work as an author by having interviewed dozens of charismatic, uplifting people across the country whose wit and grit, quoted throughout, keep you reading for more and more.
"The Fight to Save the Town" is a must read for anyone who believes - or wants to believe - that communities can and should control their own futures' creation.
The book is at once an intimate collection of individual portraits, as well as a text that has something to teach anyone who picks it up, whether they be a community activist seeking camaraderie and a reflection of their own strength, a student looking for inspiration in how to be of service, or anyone who wants to bravely challenge the entrenched myths about places long overlooked and attacked.
Anderson is a compelling writer, and she is supported in her work as an author by having interviewed dozens of charismatic, uplifting people across the country whose wit and grit, quoted throughout, keep you reading for more and more.
"The Fight to Save the Town" is a must read for anyone who believes - or wants to believe - that communities can and should control their own futures' creation.
September 20, 2022
Anderson's book is a testament to the idea that "Hope is a discipline." (Mariame Kaba) Anderson profiles four localities -- Stockton, CA; Josephine County, OR; Detroit, MI; Lawrence, MA -- and the people who are already doing the work of saving their towns. Her depictions of these communities prove that no company, no individual, and no magic solution are waiting in the wings to deliver saving. Individuals and communities are banding together now and doing the tough work of creating the possibility of hope day-in and day-out, despite the odds.
The book balances heady academic research with moving stories and anecdotes from the individuals she profiles (think Matt Desmond's Evicted). This book, though, does something a bit different. Rather than sticking with an objective, professorial tone, Anderson chooses lush, poetic prose. Her book is a feast -- of stories, language, and deep understanding of the interconnectedness of the challenges individuals and towns are facing today.
Anderson's work is a necessary intervention in conversations around local government/governance, public safety, community organizing, and environmental justice. A must read.
The book balances heady academic research with moving stories and anecdotes from the individuals she profiles (think Matt Desmond's Evicted). This book, though, does something a bit different. Rather than sticking with an objective, professorial tone, Anderson chooses lush, poetic prose. Her book is a feast -- of stories, language, and deep understanding of the interconnectedness of the challenges individuals and towns are facing today.
Anderson's work is a necessary intervention in conversations around local government/governance, public safety, community organizing, and environmental justice. A must read.
September 26, 2024
I grew up about 40 minutes from Lawrence. I only really knew it as a place where we would go play basketball in the summer. I always got the general vibe that the city wasn't doing well, but really had no context as to why, much less that there were race riots spearheaded by white citizens only a few generations removed from the receiving end of the the same treatment. To have lived so close and had no understanding of what had happened a few years before I was born, its really eye-opening. It highlights how we need to always be asking ourselves Why and How things came to be.
September 30, 2025
"Well, somebody told us Wall Street fell
But we were so poor that we couldn't tell." -Alabama, Song of the South
Children poisoned by drinking water in Flint.
Debtor's prisons in St. Louis suburbs.
Gas lines exploding in Allentown.
Counties in Tennessee that will only put out a fire if you're subscribed to fire protection services.
Ohio rivers poisoned by inadequate sewage disposal.
These are the times we live in.
Between 2000 and 2009, America experienced a 31% increase in the number municipalities, counties, and other census-designated areas where at least 1 in 5 lived below the federal poverty line. That line, as of 2020, equates to a family of four living on less than $26,246 per year.
Michelle Wilde Anderson’s The Fight to Save the Town is less a blueprint for municipal success than dispatches from the frontlines of survival. Through four regional case studies (Stockton, CA; Josephine County, OR; Lawrence, PA; and Detroit, MI), Anderson explores how small governments in hard-pressed areas attempt to serve communities in crisis. These accounts are grounded in the stark reality that local governments, especially those serving an impoverished and shrinking populace, are often asked to do more with less and, sometimes, with almost nothing at all.
The Fight to Save the Town is at its strongest when it illustrates how poverty shapes public priorities. When budgets shrink, cities and towns often default to reactive services (e.g., police responding only to shots fired, fire departments only fighting fires not working to prevent them) rather than investing in that which would make it a community people would want to live in or move to (e.g., clean water, open libraries, safe sidewalks, highspeed internet, functional public transit).
At each turn, Anderson reminds us that these decisions are shaped by decades of economic shifts, austerity measures, and a public increasingly skeptical of government. Still, what Anderson presents feels deeply situational - what works for one town or city might not pan out in others. She doesn't push universal approaches, which is (in a word) honest, but leaves readers disappointed by the lack of scalable policy ideas, thus returning them to the same questions that made them pick up this book in the first place: if you can't raise taxes because your people are increasingly leaving or impoverished, how the hell can you bounce back to prosperity?
The Fight to Save the Town is a reminder that our local governments and their ability (or inability) to serve it's citizens isn't just a reflection of inequality, it often perpetuates it further (i.e., consider the desire to attract new wealthy residents by subsidizing large businesses while cutting or deferring costs, and policing and imprisoning more).
Anderson's dispatches from the front lines of municipal government shows there are people out there waging the good fight, while reminding us just how unevenly matched that fight can sometimes be.
3 out of 5
But we were so poor that we couldn't tell." -Alabama, Song of the South
Children poisoned by drinking water in Flint.
Debtor's prisons in St. Louis suburbs.
Gas lines exploding in Allentown.
Counties in Tennessee that will only put out a fire if you're subscribed to fire protection services.
Ohio rivers poisoned by inadequate sewage disposal.
These are the times we live in.
Between 2000 and 2009, America experienced a 31% increase in the number municipalities, counties, and other census-designated areas where at least 1 in 5 lived below the federal poverty line. That line, as of 2020, equates to a family of four living on less than $26,246 per year.
Michelle Wilde Anderson’s The Fight to Save the Town is less a blueprint for municipal success than dispatches from the frontlines of survival. Through four regional case studies (Stockton, CA; Josephine County, OR; Lawrence, PA; and Detroit, MI), Anderson explores how small governments in hard-pressed areas attempt to serve communities in crisis. These accounts are grounded in the stark reality that local governments, especially those serving an impoverished and shrinking populace, are often asked to do more with less and, sometimes, with almost nothing at all.
The Fight to Save the Town is at its strongest when it illustrates how poverty shapes public priorities. When budgets shrink, cities and towns often default to reactive services (e.g., police responding only to shots fired, fire departments only fighting fires not working to prevent them) rather than investing in that which would make it a community people would want to live in or move to (e.g., clean water, open libraries, safe sidewalks, highspeed internet, functional public transit).
At each turn, Anderson reminds us that these decisions are shaped by decades of economic shifts, austerity measures, and a public increasingly skeptical of government. Still, what Anderson presents feels deeply situational - what works for one town or city might not pan out in others. She doesn't push universal approaches, which is (in a word) honest, but leaves readers disappointed by the lack of scalable policy ideas, thus returning them to the same questions that made them pick up this book in the first place: if you can't raise taxes because your people are increasingly leaving or impoverished, how the hell can you bounce back to prosperity?
The Fight to Save the Town is a reminder that our local governments and their ability (or inability) to serve it's citizens isn't just a reflection of inequality, it often perpetuates it further (i.e., consider the desire to attract new wealthy residents by subsidizing large businesses while cutting or deferring costs, and policing and imprisoning more).
Anderson's dispatches from the front lines of municipal government shows there are people out there waging the good fight, while reminding us just how unevenly matched that fight can sometimes be.
3 out of 5
June 13, 2023
The American Dream. American exceptionalism. Land of the Free. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Hogwash.
From 1776 (perhaps better to start from 1619) until this very day, we've done little to help those who could use some help. From slavery to slaughter of Native Americans to KKK to misguided liberals to idiots like Trump, we've proven time and time again that we're little better than some third-rate dictatorship. The potential's there, of course, and we have the human and material resources to do so much more. Alas, we don't.
Well, most of us don't. In "The Fight to Save the Town, we meet some who do. Michelle Anderson highlights these outstanding folks. In between, she discusses the missed opportunities, the misguided attempts by liberals to "improve," and the just downright mean, ignorant, bigoted conservatives who only care about their tax benefits.
Anderson talks about the "pernicious circular logic of the ghetto . . . disinvestment, isolation, and segregation bring about deterioration and crime, which in turn help rationalize further discontentment and exclusion." (p. 27 of the 2022 hardback)
Some other quotes:
"Poor, white strongholds of anti-elite populism rarely admit common ground with African American cities like Detroit or Camden. Neither type of community seems to realize how much they have in common with the primarily Latino or multiracial hubs of manufacturing and food production across the southwest." (p. 238)
"'[I]f there has been a single problem facing contemporary democracies, whether aspiring or well established,' writes political scientist Francis Fukuyama, 'it has been centered in their failure to provide the substance of what people want from government: personal security, shared economic growth, and quality of basic services like education, health, and infrastructure that are needed to achieve individual opportunity.'" (p. 239)
Perhaps you might read chapter 5, "Facing Forward," first. Then return to the four cities Anderson writes about. Meet some smart, hard-working people (mostly immigrants) and also some dumb, lazy bureaucrats and politicians (mostly old white men).
From 1776 (perhaps better to start from 1619) until this very day, we've done little to help those who could use some help. From slavery to slaughter of Native Americans to KKK to misguided liberals to idiots like Trump, we've proven time and time again that we're little better than some third-rate dictatorship. The potential's there, of course, and we have the human and material resources to do so much more. Alas, we don't.
Well, most of us don't. In "The Fight to Save the Town, we meet some who do. Michelle Anderson highlights these outstanding folks. In between, she discusses the missed opportunities, the misguided attempts by liberals to "improve," and the just downright mean, ignorant, bigoted conservatives who only care about their tax benefits.
Anderson talks about the "pernicious circular logic of the ghetto . . . disinvestment, isolation, and segregation bring about deterioration and crime, which in turn help rationalize further discontentment and exclusion." (p. 27 of the 2022 hardback)
Some other quotes:
"Poor, white strongholds of anti-elite populism rarely admit common ground with African American cities like Detroit or Camden. Neither type of community seems to realize how much they have in common with the primarily Latino or multiracial hubs of manufacturing and food production across the southwest." (p. 238)
"'[I]f there has been a single problem facing contemporary democracies, whether aspiring or well established,' writes political scientist Francis Fukuyama, 'it has been centered in their failure to provide the substance of what people want from government: personal security, shared economic growth, and quality of basic services like education, health, and infrastructure that are needed to achieve individual opportunity.'" (p. 239)
Perhaps you might read chapter 5, "Facing Forward," first. Then return to the four cities Anderson writes about. Meet some smart, hard-working people (mostly immigrants) and also some dumb, lazy bureaucrats and politicians (mostly old white men).
October 17, 2023
This is NOT my kind of book, but it is, in fact, exceptionally researched and dense. This is a great book about hope, and change, and what it takes from a day-to-day, on the ground perspective.
I'm interested in decline, and what happens after the brightest lights dim and a place has to move on. Anderson has clearly covered it here with tons of details on the four very different cities she chose to cover. And her ultimate solution is to roll up your sleeves and get to work if you are one of the leftovers in the place that has declined.
But the book isn't really about policy. It's about the people in the fight, and how much of a difference it can make for people to engage in society. I think people in nonprofits and government can really benefit from the book because it shows a variety of human-centered tactics and approaches that could add benefit in a challenged place.
This is NOT a book about solutions, though, really. Anderson seems to throw up her hands at the scale of the difficulties, choosing, in the end, to say really people just need to work the problem. I wonder if that's the right approach, and for me personally I was left wanting more strategy and policy.
I found it all to be a bit too much, as I'm looking for broader brushstrokes. But I think Anderson might have covered that flaw, she just doesn't say it. The best thing about this book for someone interested is its DENSITY. Nearly every sentence contains a nugget of information about decline or renewal. Policy on decline and renewal in abandoned places needs exactly the kind of detail Anderson has covered here very thoroughly. So Anderson has etched out the broader brush - you read this book and you have a good grounding in all the problems and how to solve them, say at the federal or state level. It's just that Anderson doesn't make those kind of recommendations in the book.
I'm interested in decline, and what happens after the brightest lights dim and a place has to move on. Anderson has clearly covered it here with tons of details on the four very different cities she chose to cover. And her ultimate solution is to roll up your sleeves and get to work if you are one of the leftovers in the place that has declined.
But the book isn't really about policy. It's about the people in the fight, and how much of a difference it can make for people to engage in society. I think people in nonprofits and government can really benefit from the book because it shows a variety of human-centered tactics and approaches that could add benefit in a challenged place.
This is NOT a book about solutions, though, really. Anderson seems to throw up her hands at the scale of the difficulties, choosing, in the end, to say really people just need to work the problem. I wonder if that's the right approach, and for me personally I was left wanting more strategy and policy.
I found it all to be a bit too much, as I'm looking for broader brushstrokes. But I think Anderson might have covered that flaw, she just doesn't say it. The best thing about this book for someone interested is its DENSITY. Nearly every sentence contains a nugget of information about decline or renewal. Policy on decline and renewal in abandoned places needs exactly the kind of detail Anderson has covered here very thoroughly. So Anderson has etched out the broader brush - you read this book and you have a good grounding in all the problems and how to solve them, say at the federal or state level. It's just that Anderson doesn't make those kind of recommendations in the book.
September 27, 2022
This is a WONDERFUL book for anyone interested in government, policy, and activism at all levels. It's honest, despairing, downright depressing at times, but ultimately, deeply hopeful.
I feel like so much of our political consciousness has shifted from the local to the national (and the international), and with it, politics has become a spectator sport: we watch national events unfold on our preferred network with our preferred spin, get appropriately angry and hopeful in all the right places, and we never do anything to address the growing disconnect between our political ideals and our actions; politics remains something to be consumed from the sidelines.
This book takes a much-needed deep dive into local governments, which have not only been neglected in the real economy in the wake of the post-industrial revolution, but have also been correspondingly neglected in the attention economy. Part of the project of this book is imagining how amazing it would be if most Americans--like many of the activists and local government officials profiled in the book--dedicated their time to improving the communities in which they reside: making sure the basic functions of local government (schools, libraries, parks, public safety) are working. (Side note: if you're interested in abolition (from any angle), read the chapter on Josephine County--trust me).
The four localities profiled in the book--and the crises they're in--are super different. But the beautiful thing Anderson does is show us that the solutions to these crises--and the people who drive them (which can be you! reader of the book!)--share a common shape. Anderson helps bring us closer to a world in which people direct more of their energy to their local communities (and governments).
I feel like so much of our political consciousness has shifted from the local to the national (and the international), and with it, politics has become a spectator sport: we watch national events unfold on our preferred network with our preferred spin, get appropriately angry and hopeful in all the right places, and we never do anything to address the growing disconnect between our political ideals and our actions; politics remains something to be consumed from the sidelines.
This book takes a much-needed deep dive into local governments, which have not only been neglected in the real economy in the wake of the post-industrial revolution, but have also been correspondingly neglected in the attention economy. Part of the project of this book is imagining how amazing it would be if most Americans--like many of the activists and local government officials profiled in the book--dedicated their time to improving the communities in which they reside: making sure the basic functions of local government (schools, libraries, parks, public safety) are working. (Side note: if you're interested in abolition (from any angle), read the chapter on Josephine County--trust me).
The four localities profiled in the book--and the crises they're in--are super different. But the beautiful thing Anderson does is show us that the solutions to these crises--and the people who drive them (which can be you! reader of the book!)--share a common shape. Anderson helps bring us closer to a world in which people direct more of their energy to their local communities (and governments).
January 17, 2023
A gorgeous and ambitious portrait of the gritty, hard-fought, slow-moving, and beautiful realities of four sometimes-forgotten places and the people moving them forward. If you are someone who has ever cared about a community, or if you are looking to reclaim some of the magic and motivation to show up for your neighbors, this is a book for you.
I have never been to Josephine County, or to Stockton, Lawrence, or Detroit. But what struck me about all four was just how ordinary and familiar they seemed to me. A child of an underserved corner of rural Missouri and a member of a high-rise community in D.C., I saw my neighbors in the brilliant and beautiful people to whom Michelle Wilde Anderson pays homage in this book. (And Anderson's skill in bringing people to life in her writing should not be understated -- this is a gorgeous, easy, and deeply narrative piece of nonfiction.)
Anderson observes that rebuilding trust after a community's breakdown is hard. Even when there is will to do real good, one must earn the trust of those who were used to being mistreated and neglected by people with authority. It takes time, and showing up, to even begin to break through. And that work isn’t quick. There are no easy, scalable solutions. And Anderson does not promise a universal formula for turning intractable problems into tractable ones.
Instead, Anderson offers a solid, empathetic reminder that the people who make things better are not saints or superheroes. They are you and me and our neighbors and our kids, if only we show up for our communities.
Let this book me a reminder of the importance of being invested in your neighbors. Place matters. We are all putting down roots. Take some time become a little better at watering yours.
I have never been to Josephine County, or to Stockton, Lawrence, or Detroit. But what struck me about all four was just how ordinary and familiar they seemed to me. A child of an underserved corner of rural Missouri and a member of a high-rise community in D.C., I saw my neighbors in the brilliant and beautiful people to whom Michelle Wilde Anderson pays homage in this book. (And Anderson's skill in bringing people to life in her writing should not be understated -- this is a gorgeous, easy, and deeply narrative piece of nonfiction.)
Anderson observes that rebuilding trust after a community's breakdown is hard. Even when there is will to do real good, one must earn the trust of those who were used to being mistreated and neglected by people with authority. It takes time, and showing up, to even begin to break through. And that work isn’t quick. There are no easy, scalable solutions. And Anderson does not promise a universal formula for turning intractable problems into tractable ones.
Instead, Anderson offers a solid, empathetic reminder that the people who make things better are not saints or superheroes. They are you and me and our neighbors and our kids, if only we show up for our communities.
Let this book me a reminder of the importance of being invested in your neighbors. Place matters. We are all putting down roots. Take some time become a little better at watering yours.
January 2, 2023
This made a solid case for the idea that we're thinking about local politics all wrong, and how changes to local services (or support for certain budget measures) can lead to unintended outcomes. It does a great job of highlighting common misconceptions about government action or inaction that helps or hurts local crime rates, stimulates or ruins local economies, and improves or worsens the lives of people in the average American town. It presents the kind of information that could transform national conversations about services if citizens from both sides of the aisle read it.
My one gripe about this book (and the reason why I haven't given it five stars) is that it goes a bit too heavy on driving home the same ideas with repetitive statistics rather than talking more extensively about the implications of these discoveries. I think this book would have been a home run with a bit more analysis, call to action, or prediction. At some points, I found myself tuning out around the statistics and getting a bit impatient to hear commentary about what all these observations mean.
My one gripe about this book (and the reason why I haven't given it five stars) is that it goes a bit too heavy on driving home the same ideas with repetitive statistics rather than talking more extensively about the implications of these discoveries. I think this book would have been a home run with a bit more analysis, call to action, or prediction. At some points, I found myself tuning out around the statistics and getting a bit impatient to hear commentary about what all these observations mean.
March 3, 2023
Follows through on its promise to demonstrate complex, yet adaptable, real-world solutions to the problems caused by abandonment of the country's poorest cities, towns, and rural counties. This is a dense read, but needfully so, lest anything be simplified or made to seem as an easy win.
The author also eschews simplistic or easy character sketches, which allows us to really understand the motivations of individuals and why they care not only about outcomes, but about how they get there. I do wish she had been a little more willing to acknowledge their flaws - she references one person from a non-profit aid org who got in trouble, but you have to google them to find out it was for sexual assault of a child.
Also valuable for its accurate, well-researched thumbnail histories of four unique American places.
Ultimately, this is real research but presents and reads as high-quality journalism.
The author also eschews simplistic or easy character sketches, which allows us to really understand the motivations of individuals and why they care not only about outcomes, but about how they get there. I do wish she had been a little more willing to acknowledge their flaws - she references one person from a non-profit aid org who got in trouble, but you have to google them to find out it was for sexual assault of a child.
Also valuable for its accurate, well-researched thumbnail histories of four unique American places.
Ultimately, this is real research but presents and reads as high-quality journalism.
October 8, 2023
a really artfully written collection of case studies that illustrate how a devoted, persistent group of people who really love a place can bring opportunities, dignity, and life back to a town or city that has been neglected and exploited for too long. i consider this book to be a great example of a new genre that i've become obsessed with lately, a genre of "solutionism" alongside Deep Economy by Bill McKibben and The Town that Food Saved, which I've just started and look forward to further delving into. Oh, and I am not a tractor! by Susan Marquis. I adore a book that can thoughtfully and concisely trace historical threads in a locality that explain "why things got this bad," but more importantly, highlight the very impressive local leaders of all stripes who have invested their lives in reinvigorating the communities they love. None of these case studies are perfect success stories, but very inspiring nonetheless.
July 26, 2023
I had to step back from reading this several times. There was a lot here that was depressing, then hopeful. Good insight into the cause of multigenerational border to border poverty that is occurring in many different areas of the US today. It also contains a compelling argument as to why the government needs to provide certain services to their communities, and how it is harmful to everyone when those are missing including but not limited to: affordable housing, continuing education, medical and mental health care, safe living conditions, and reliable emergency services. These solutions need to be long term, legally supported, and sustainable. They will only happen with communication is achieved between all parties involved, and people act and vote accordingly.
February 22, 2024
Not bad, but also not really cohesive. Michelle Wilde Anderson’s ‘The Fight to Save the Town’ hit my radar as a study of the vicious cycle of local government failing its citizenry, thereby losing funding and continuing to flounder. The book itself traces the falls and erstwhile rises of Stockton, CA, Josephine, OR, Lawrence, MA, and Detroit, MI. It spends most of its time on vignettes or characters that I’m sure made an impression on Anderson while she was doing the research for the book, but that muddy a cohesive throughline that ties the narratives together. Glad I read but not really a page turner.
Edit: Also never liked the title because I forgot it multiple times while reading and had to edit this review because I got it wrong.
Edit: Also never liked the title because I forgot it multiple times while reading and had to edit this review because I got it wrong.
March 22, 2023
RIYL city planning, community revitalization, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears
September 27, 2022
As an activist and community organizer, I found this book really helpful. People's actual stories--not some ideas that Anderson thought up in a secluded ivory tower--drive the book. Anderson guides readers with helpful context and necessary history, but the stories and voices are what lift this book above books with similar tropes. If you loved Desmond's Evicted or even Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, this is required reading.
October 4, 2022
This book - a look at four struggling American cities/towns - has the sharpness and clarity of the best kind of informed journalism. It is also beautifully poetic. I read the book because I wanted to know specifics about the kinds of ways that challenged places find healing and recovery. I fell in love with it because of the beauty of the people it portrayed. Anderson is a rare kind of scholar - exacting, precise, brilliant - but also poetic and soulful.
September 21, 2023
This book explored four "towns" (actually a combination of towns and cities) to explore why America's forgotten towns have struggled to recover, and how it's easy to be drawn into the ruin without understanding the investment and care that these places need to recover. Rather than an in-depth analysis of what is needed, I was drawn in by the stories of the four places (Stockton, Josephine County, Lawrence, and Detroit) and how creative solutions were driving improvement locally.
August 7, 2025
So about 60% of this book is infuriatingly badly written, but the other 40% is gold. I recommend reading chapter 4 about Detroit and chapter 2 about Josephine and not even opening the rest. Those two chapters have some brilliant and incisive political economic history and the analysis of municipal governance is soooo needed. The rest attempts to reach from historiography to sociological analysis and joy oh boy does it fail.
September 27, 2022
A wonderfully insightful and interesting book! In this era of conservatives versus liberals, Professor Anderson’s ability to look beyond the polarized extremes and try to help us understand the complexities, heartache, and possibilities of struggling American communities is inspiring! This should be required reading for all citizens who care about this country.
September 29, 2022
This is a masterfully researched and beautifully written analysis of the institutional challenges to the vision of the American dream. The book chooses four disparate parts of the country to illustrate the complexity of the problems and the range of hopeful solutions. It is utterly non-partisan and is an extraordinary contribution to civic, and civil discourse in the United States.
November 8, 2023
While this book is informative, it would work better as a textbook in a Sociology or Urban Studies course, perhaps. With so many books to choose from, I would not recommend this to anyone unless a person was specifically looking for information about how towns can suffer and what types of activities have served to help bring such towns back from their depressed states.
August 15, 2024
Great, well researched and reported book about a complex problem with no simple cookie-cutter solutions. If I was ever in a position of power where I was trying to save any sort of town this book does not lay out any simple solutions but it is a lighthouse that highlights hazards and clearer paths forward...
July 10, 2022
Portrays four struggling, working class towns and shows how how each is struggling (to borrow from Tolstoy) in its own way. But many of the issues and problems are generalizable. Highly recommended for local government leaders.
May 15, 2024
Read for a book club discussion. Learned some things and will retain some ideas, but it was a difficult read. I enjoyed the stories and my familiarity with the Detroit story. Data & numbers and the depressing facts were hard to read.
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