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The article offers the author's insights regarding the geography of micropolitan town Bluefield in West Virginia. Topics discussed include the benefits of coal and railways in the economy of the town, the effects of removing industrial activities in southern West Virginia, and the potential land conversion of Bluefield into a rural region.

Using growth curve modeling techniques, this research investigates whether military spending improved or worsened the economic well-being of citizens within the American states during the post-Vietnam War period. We empirically test the military Keynesianism claim that military spending improves the economic conditions of citizens through its use by politicians as a countercyclical tool to reduce the negative effects of economic downturns. However, due to deindustrialization and the emergence of the "new military," there are reasons to believe that military spending will not effectively improve economic well-being during the post-Vietnam War era. Using longitudinal data we find that states with high levels of military spending are better equipped to stave off the deleterious effects of economic recession than are states with lower levels of military spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial earnings inequalities in the United States diminished significantly over the three decades following World War II, but since then have not changed very much. Meanwhile, black—white disparities in employment have become increasingly pronounced. What accounts for this historical pattern? Sociologists often understand the evolution of racial wage and employment inequality as the consequence of economic restructuring, resulting in narratives about black economic fortunes that emphasize changing skill demands related to the rise and fall of the industrial economy. Reviewing a large body of work by economic historians and other researchers, this article contends that the historical evidence is not consistent with manufacturing- and skills-centered explanations of changes in relative black earnings and employment. Instead, data from the 1940s onward suggest that racial earnings inequalities have been significantly influenced by political and institutional factors—social movements, government policies, unionization efforts, and public-employment patterns—and that racial employment disparities have increased over the course of the postwar and post-1970s periods for reasons that are not reducible to skills. Taking a broader historical view suggests that black economic fortunes have long been powerfully shaped by nonmarket factors and recenters research on racial discrimination as well as the political and institutional forces that influence labor markets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the impact of automation on the working class in the U.S. It notes that the working class fears to be replaced by robots due to technological advances. It provides a background on the rapid automation of manufacturing in 1970s and how the Black workers were affected by the pressure of automation. It notes that the technological advances bring slow productivity growth instead of an increase in economic productivity.

The article discusses a socioeconomic change in America in the 1970s in relation to the issue of nursing home abuse and a patient abuse-related scandal involving the John J. Kane Hospital in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The economic aspects of U.S. health care policy are addressed, along with deindustrialization, long-term care for older Americans, and America's New Deal government policies. Social rights and hospital wages in the U.S. are assessed.

Historical, feminist scholarship demonstrates that the welfare state underwrote the work of social reproduction, enabling procreation, socialization, sexuality, nurturance, and family maintenance. Carried out by families and other public and private social institutions, social reproduction includes making food, clothing, and shelter available for immediate consumption; ensuring the health and productivity of the current and future labor force; providing for people too old, too young, or too sick to care for themselves; and socializing family members. Historically, social reproduction includes both women's unpaid labor in the home and low-paid labor in the market and converts the wages of paid workers into the means of subsistence for the entire household. The economic crisis of the mid-1970s marked the end of the "golden age" of capitalism, and yielded neoliberal politics that sought to undo the redistributive elements of the New Deal and the Great Society. It called for a smaller state, greater reliance on market forces, and reduced expenditure on family maintenance. This article, a reprint of a 2017 book chapter, explores the crisis in social reproduction in the United States that surfaced with the rise of neoliberalism and the "carceral state." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines changes in family poverty in Ohio cities, suburbs and nonmetropolitan counties at the hands of economic restructuring for the periods 1970-1980 and 1980-1990. The restructuring process involves both a loss of manufacturing jobs and an increasing reliance on the service industry for employment. As such, restructuring is conceptualized as a major transformation that is disruptive to the social system, at least in the short run. It is hypothesized that loss of manufacturing jobs increases family poverty, that central city location is associated with greater poverty in comparison to suburbs and nonmetropolitan counties and that gains in service sector employment alleviate family poverty. Results support the manufacturing and location hypotheses. However, the analysis demonstrates that in the later period, increases in service industry-employment increased family poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering stagnating regional prosperity levels and growing inter-regional disparities in many economies, this paper appeals for a renewed research agenda to deepen our understanding of regional economic development. This is done by discussing different conceptual perspectives, their empirical applications and open questions and suggestions for future research. Conventional approaches view development as an outcome of and dependent upon local economic structure. That is, high regional performance is associated with specific regional industrial and human capital mixes. We argue that to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms that drive regional economic development it is helpful to apply a relational approach that pays attention to the networks between economic actors across different spatial scales, from local to global. These generate knowledge as well as access to technologies, resources and markets, thereby catalyzing income growth. To support regional policy agendas, it is further necessary to go beyond identifying regularities that structure development and engage with differing regional pathways by conducting systematic comparative analyses of local contextual and institutional conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I offer an innovative analysis of unproductive accumulation in the US economy from 1947 to 2011. I develop a new theoretical and empirical framework to analyze the accumulation of capital in its productive and unproductive forms. I also develop a methodology to compute Marxist categories predicated on the idea that the production of knowledge and information is an unproductive activity that relies on the creation of knowledge-rents. In particular, I provide new empirical estimates to uncover the shifting balance between productive and unproductive forms of accumulation. The accumulation pattern observed during the 1947–79 phase that prioritized productive accumulation gave way after the 1980s to a contrasting pattern prioritizing unproductive accumulation. Unproductive activity has been growing at a fast pace in terms of incomes, fixed assets and employment. Among all forms of unproductive activity, my approach places special attention on how the production of knowledge and information has constituted a rising share of total unproductive income and capital stock. Additionally, productive stagnation and rapid unproductive accumulation have been related to greater exploitation of productive workers and to widening income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a widespread view that American manufacturing is in decline. This view reflects many factors. First, real GDP growth during the current business expansion has been the weakest in the post-World War II period. Second, over the decade from 2000 to 2010 manufacturing employment declined by about 6 million. Third, persistent manufacturing trade deficits have led many observers to conclude that U.S. competitiveness has eroded. This paper discusses these arguments and suggests that, instead, U.S. manufacturing is a leading growth sector and has remained strongly competitive internationally. We show that traditional domestic economic forces adequately explain recent trends in U.S. manufacturing output and employment growth. The recent reduction in the corporate income tax rate may further boost the fortunes of the U.S. manufacturing sector, although this favorable development could be offset by a more restrictive international trade regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accepted wisdom about the US overdose crisis singles out prescribing as the causative vector. Although drug supply is a key factor, we posit that the crisis is fundamentally fueled by economic and social upheaval, its etiology closely linked to the role of opioids as a refuge from physical and psychological trauma, concentrated disadvantage, isolation, and hopelessness. Overreliance on opioid medications is emblematic of a health care system that incentivizes quick, simplistic answers to complex physical and mental health needs. In an analogous way, simplistic measures to cut access to opioids offer illusory solutions to this multidimensional societal challenge. We trace the crisis’ trajectory through the intertwined use of opioid analgesics, heroin, and fentanyl analogs, and we urge engaging the structural determinants lens to address this formidable public health emergency. Abroad focus on suffering should guide both patient- and community-level interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1957 and 1990, nearly 100 nuclear reactors were constructed throughout the U.S., and nuclear power currently accounts for 20 percent of electricity production nationwide. Nuclear plants are often constructed in small communities for which they constitute a large source of employment and income. To date, 24 nuclear reactors have undergone decommissioning, and more are expected in the future, particularly as nuclear reactors age and face increasingly strict regulations. This paper examines the effects of nuclear decommissioning over time at the county-level on measures of employment, income, and population using difference-in-differences regression and propensity score matching. Panel data are obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau, and cover the years 1975-2014. The analysis finds that nuclear decommissioning is associated with positive and statistically significant increases in employment and per capita income over time. Results suggest that nuclear decommissioning may actually be a positive force in regional economic development, and concludes with limitations of the approach and implications for future research. As an emerging area of research, this paper is meant to build on previous work, as well as to provide a basis for further discussion and debate on the economic future of nuclear host communities and regional economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Henry Giroux, one of the founders of Critical Pedagogy, analyzes the connection between neoliberal policies, the disenfranchisement of poor communities e.g., by appointing city managers, and the distruction of life and the environment. Using the catastrophs of Katrina and Flint, he demonstrates class war is a violent reality. Policies of dispossession and disposability for profit are intensifying with dedly consequenses for the poor and volunarble. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently released prisoners in the United States are increasingly facing the burden of financial debt associated with correctional supervision, yet little research has pursued how—theoretically or empirically—the burden of debt might affect life after prison. To address this gap, we employ life course and strain perspectives and path analysis to examine the impact of child support debt on employment and recidivism, using longitudinal data from an evaluation of a prisoner reentry program known as the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative. Results indicate that having more debt has no effect on recidivism; however, more debt was significantly associated with a decrease in later legitimate employment. Implications for community reintegration and justice processing are discussed within the framework of past and emerging work on legal financial obligations, employment, and desistance from crime after prison. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT Following the 2007 mortgage crash, the US government established programs to assist homeowners by modifying their mortgages. But the oversight of these programs was granted to the same mortgage industry giants that provoked the crisis, and these lenders rejected over 70 percent of applicants' requests for modifications. In the process, there emerged new mortgage-modification bureaucracies, fusing corporate and state forms of administrative power. Yet as mortgagors demanded assistance from private lenders, they and lending company employees were drawn into reciprocal relationships that anthropologists have previously associated with 'gift economies.' This convergence of government and corporate bureaucracies has inspired among homeowners and modification specialists in California's Sacramento Valley forms of reciprocity often considered antithetical to late-capitalist finance. This surprising contemporary juxtaposition of reciprocity and indebtedness suggests a need to revise long-standing anthropological theories about the social obligations born of debt ties within late liberal capitalist markets. [ bureaucracy, corporations, debt, foreclosure, mortgaging, reciprocity, United States] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the hybrid nature of material and digital spaces, more decisions are being made online that have a direct effect on offline actions. This is increasingly true for the locations where people are choosing to consume goods and services such as restaurants or retail outlets. The growth of the GeoWeb-personal data uploaded to certain Internet sites such as social media platforms-has established large databases showing the locations where people go during their daily lives for the purposes of consumption. One such repository is the social network, Foursquare, which people use to display their physical location to their friends, digitally. In looking more closely at datasets from Foursquare overlaid with information on racial characteristics in census tracts, a pattern emerges: predominantly African-American tracts are increasingly left out of this type of online participation. This paper will compare Foursquare data from several U.S. cities to discuss the implications of being left off of social media platforms tied to economic activity. It is likely that these virtually invisible areas will have a direct impact on the economic vitality of their physical counterparts [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a theoretical account of the reconstruction of workforce downsizing as a shareholder-value strategy since the 1980s. This account has two components. First, building on resource-dependence theory, I suggest that growing corporate dependence on institutional investors makes firms susceptible to their demand for greater returns, especially when these institutional investors are blockholders and resistant to counter-pressure from managers. Second, building on Fligstein's theory of conceptions of control, I suggest that the rise of shareholder value reorients managerial behavior, by changing the decision context in a way that induces managers to maximize shareholder value. Crucial to constructing this new decision context are a set of agency-theory prescriptions for reforming corporate governance. My analysis of downsizing announcements, drawing on a sample of 714 US firms between 1981 and 2006, shows that both the pressure from institutional investors and the new decision context encourage firms to downsize more frequently. By demonstrating how both pressure from investors and changed managerial decision contexts have contributed to the prevalence of workforce downsizing, this paper makes a strong case for the financialization of the American corporation, and contributes to the sociological research on growing job insecurity and income inequality over the past three decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We often hear that the high unemployment rates of low-educated workers in Europe are due to the rigidities of the institutions increasing the labour costs that burden employers. In this article, we challenge this traditional view and offer alternative explanations to the cross-national variation in the employment rate of low-educated workers. Using macro-data and an error correction model, we analyse the determinants of the creation of jobs for low-educated workers in 19 countries between 1997 and 2010. Our findings tend to invalidate the neoliberal view, while also pointing to the positive impact of investing in public employment services and the predominant role of economic growth, which can be weakened by union density and employment protection in the case of male workers. Last but not least, creating low skill jobs has no or little impact on the employment outcomes of low-educated workers, thus indicating job displacement issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT Despite extensive studies on neighborhood change, the role of municipal-level factors in neighborhood economic change has been underexplored. This article reviews diverse social science literature and makes theoretical connections between city size and homogeneity of city population and municipal performance, which is accordingly associated with neighborhood economic health. Building on the insights from the literature, this study hypothesizes that neighborhoods stay economically healthier in smaller cities and more homogeneous cities. This study presents a multilevel analysis of neighborhood economic change in 35 U.S. metropolitan areas between 1990 and 2000 and finds empirical evidence to support the proposed hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite rapid changes in women’s educational attainment and continuous labor force experience, convergence in the gender gap in wages slowed in the 1990s and stalled in the 2000s. Using CPS data from 1979 to 2009, we show that convergence in the gender gap in hourly pay over these three decades was attenuated by the increasing prevalence of “overwork” (defined as working 50 or more hours per week) and the rising hourly wage returns to overwork. Because a greater proportion of men engage in overwork, these changes raised men’s wages relative to women’s and exacerbated the gender wage gap by an estimated 10 percent of the total wage gap. This overwork effect was sufficiently large to offset the wage-equalizing effects of the narrowing gender gap in educational attainment and other forms of human capital. The overwork effect on trends in the gender gap in wages was most pronounced in professional and managerial occupations, where long work hours are especially common and the norm of overwork is deeply embedded in organizational practices and occupational cultures. These results illustrate how new ways of organizing work can perpetuate old forms of gender inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While prisons proliferate in the rural landscape and sites of penal tourism expand, the carceral state structures the available visual and analytic vantages through which to perceive this growing visibility. Using examples from fieldwork in Kentucky, including Appalachian prison communities and a site of penal tourism, this article proposes ‘counter-visual’ ethnography to better perceive the ideological work that the carceral state performs in the spatial and cultural landscape. A counter-visual ethnography retrains our eyes to see that which is not ‘there’ but which structures the contemporary empirical realities we observe, record, and analyze: the ghosts of racialized regimes past, the sediment of dirty industry that seeps into and imbues the present, and the trans-historical and trans-local circulation of carceral logics and epistemologies. In addition, this article suggests the important role images play in shaping alternative vantages from which to better perceive the carceral state with historical, spatial, and political acuity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The recent declaration of the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history has propelled Detroit’s plight into the international spotlight. Though a victim of the general decline of US manufacturing, drawing on Thomas Sugrue’s pioneering work I argue that Detroit’s crisis is better understood as a specifically urban crisis. The city’s concentrated poverty and desolation and its fiscal straits are not reducible to broader economic trends, nor are they exclusively the product of political mismanagement. Rather, they are the outcome of a long history of economic decentralization and racial segregation, made worse by a politico-administrative arrangement that distributes wealth and services unequally across the metropolitan area. By imposing municipal austerity, Detroit’s bankruptcy is unlikely to do much to address these fundamental inequalities. Any plan to revitalize the city must move beyond boosterism and tackle head on the problems of racial and economic segregation that continue to affect Detroit’s 700,000 residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a comparative analysis of the militia movement in the United States and the two major loyalist paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland. The comparison reveals a similar history of economic transition that highlights the need to consider occupational factors in assessing the causes of violent extremism. The article reflects further on the evidence of a number of other similarities between the two groups: the preeminence of historical narratives, the tendency toward militancy and violence, and localist, antigovernment ideologies. It is argued that these similarities can be similarly understood within the same economic framework, and suggests further research in similarly comparative contexts would reveal greater insight. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article investigates the perception of job threat posed by immigrants within the U.S. by using group threat theory, contact theory, and cultural theory. It addresses the increasing attention being paid to issues of immigration in the U.S. since 2000, as well as notes the impact of forces including economic competition, labor market deregulation, and globalization on perception of immigrant threat. It comments on the connection between immigrant threat and economic stagnation caused by outside forces.

The article focuses on the role of prison industry in the shrinking economy of the U.S. It states that because of the U.S. carceral crisis, the prison labor supply was considered and tapped by the law. It says that federal prisons have started the business of manufacturing textiles. Meanwhile, it suggests that there is only one working class in the U.S., whether one works beyond or behind the walls of prison.

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One of the most conventional statements in economics, with regard to the services sector, suggests that, as a whole, this sector has a lower productivity level and growth rates than the other productive sectors. From this approach, we can derive the relative lower productivity in some advanced economies (such as the European countries versus the USA and some particular emergent economies) as an explanation of the growth of the tertiary sector. This paper will look in greater depth at issues related to services productivity, from conceptual aspects regarding the definition and meaning of productivity to methodological and measurement of services productivity. This work is essentially a necessary revision of the literature on economic growth, productivity and the services sector, reviewing not only the conventional literature but also those new waves of thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This works explores the current phenomenon of Mexican migration and its relation to the female head of household phenomenon of rural migrant communities from a pluralistic approach to economic development. This study emphasizes the role that women can play in the development of Mexican rural communities, a region where the impact of free market policies has exacerbated the historical conditions of poverty and marginalization, and consequently, the increase of migration to the United States. The impact of women, if given the opportunities, is crucial to enhance development in the region. Women must be empowered through the provision of employment and included in the economic policy agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent financial crisis has brought new attention to the politics of economic behaviour in the United States. This article uses a critical legal geographical examination of corporate regulation in the US to guide emerging interest past the narrow focus on the past 10 years to a more substantive engagement with US corporate regulatory history. The argument advanced is that the open, critical and creative public discussion needed to define and enforce the desired role for corporations in contemporary society requires that critical attention be paid to conceptions of the corporation and of corporate rights and the political geography of corporate regulation that have generally gone unexamined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses demographic change and the decline of Catholic parochial elementary schools in Youngstown, Ohio, between 1960 and 2006. The article analyzes various reactions among Catholic parish members following attempts by several predominantly white parish schools to attract non-Catholic and minority students, particularly the debate over maintaining urban Catholic schools that did not serve a majority of Catholic students. It also examines the impact of charter schools on the enrollment of Catholic schools, as well as the levels of financial support from the local diocese.

The article discusses black racial formation in contemporary times. The author states that financial global racial capitalism has brought African Americans into a state much like their situation during the period known as the Nadir (1877-1917). The author argues that this is because of the marginalization of black workers and an escalation in incarceration. As examples, the author examines the suppression of black voters in Florida during the 2000 presidential election, the catastrophe caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the housing foreclosures caused by the collapse of the subprime mortgage market in 2008.

This study compares economic justice, measured by income inequality and child poverty rates, across industrialized countries. Labor market training, social service expenditures, unions and taxes were significantly related to economic justice. The United States had the highest income inequality and the second-highest child poverty rate of the countries studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nixon/Ford years were a pivotal period when severe fiscal problems emerged whose resolutions constrained the ambit of social policy afterward. A shared diagnosis of economic challenges produced divergent effects in the electoral fortunes of the major political parties and set the stage for an upward redistribution of wealth. Horizontal equity became synonymous with overall tax equity. This article examines how economic ideas acquire political traction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mechanisms shaping a shift in intrametropolitan self-employment remain poorly understood. In response, this study aims to examine shifts in both central-city and suburban self-employment by integrating the changing forces of intrametropolitan economy and population with their economic interdependence within an entire metropolitan area. Using a change-score model, data collected over two timeperiods (1980-90 and 1990-2000) are pooled. The analysis shows that a decline in intrametropolitan manufacturing employment, which can be understood as an aspect of local economic restructuring, leads to an increase in intrametropolitan self-employment. Also, the data suggest that a rise in metropolitan-level immigrant population contributes to the growth of central-city self-employment. Moreover, this paper demonstrates that a shift in central-city self-employment is affected by both central-city and suburban economic transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fort Ritchie Army Garrison in Cascade, Maryland, slated for closure as part of the 1995 base realignment and closure (BRAC) round, officially ceased military operations on September 30, 1998. More than eight years later, a confluence of circumstances had prevented its reuse, and the community had yet to benefit from reuse efforts. To understand how such base closings affect the local community and the character of a place, an ethnographic case study and a post hoc social impact assessment were conducted. Told in this article is the story of how one community has responded and adjusted to the loss of the military, which provides lessons for other communities facing base closings and for federal entities tasked with overseeing and facilitating the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several documents released by government organizations. The United States Council of Economic Advisers released "Immigration's Economic Impact" that discusses the economic impact of immigration in the U.S. A news paper article by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon concerning migration and globalization is presented and appeared in the July 9, 2007 issue of the "Washington Post." A speech by French president Nicholas Sarkozy titled "Tasks of the European Union" is presented.

The newly anointed American cities of the late capitalist moment appear preoccupied with the reconstitution of urban space. More accurately, select parcels of urban America have been reconfigured into multifaceted sport, leisure and tourism environments designed for the purpose of encouraging consumption-oriented capital accumulation. Within this paper, the focus is a critical exploration of the ways in which tangible and intangible forms of heritage have been employed, utilized and exploited within these urban transformations. Through focus on a city emblematic of the processes that have molded downtown cores under US capitalism - Memphis - the paper points to the role of heritage in the reconfiguration of the Memphian 'tourist bubble'. In particular, discussion centers on the often problematic selection of histories and historical elements, forms and practices within the interests of capital space and thus raises a host of localized questions about whose collective memory is being performed in the present, whose aesthetics really count and who benefits. Conclusions address how such urban space is imbued with power relations, that is, how increasingly leisure-oriented spaces can be seen as important sites of social struggle in which dominant power relations can be constructed, contested and reproduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Megalopolis 50 years after Gottmann’s seminal study of the most urbanized region of the US Eastern Seaboard. His study provides an invaluable datum point, and we use it as a benchmark for reexamining the socio-spatial transformations of a city region. After redefining Megalopolis and showing major aggregate trends since 1950, we analyze 39 selected variables for place level census data for 2,353 places to perform a principal components analysis (PCA). Our analysis shows that Megalopolis remains a significant center for the nation’s population and economic activity. A half century of urban restructuring demonstrates that the forces of urban decentralization have made the region a more fully suburbanized agglomeration. We reveal a complex socioeconomic pattern of a vast urban area structured by class, education, housing tenure, housing age, and race and ethnicity. The cluster analysis reveals five distinct clusters of urban places identified by our PCA: ‘affluent places’, ‘places of poverty’, ‘Black middle class places’, ‘immigrant gateway places’ and ‘middle America places’. Résumé Il s’agit ici de revenir sur Mégalopolis 50 ans après l’étude majeure de Gottmann sur la région la plus urbanisée du littoral Est des Etats-Unis. Son étude procure un point de départ inestimable utilisé ici comme référence à partir de laquelle rééxaminer les transformations socio-spatiales d’une région métropolitaine. Dans un premier temps, ce travail redéfinit Mégalopolis et présente les grandes tendances à la concentration depuis 1950. Il analyse ensuite 39 variables choisies, portant sur les données de recensement des lieux par niveau (2.353 lieux traités), afin d’effectuer une analyse en composantes principales (PCA). Celle-ci montre que Mégalopolis demeure un nœud important pour la population et l’activitééconomique nationales. Un demi-siècle de restructuration urbaine met en évidence que, à cause des forces de décentralisation urbaine, la région est devenue une agglomération aux banlieues plus étendues. Il se dégage un schéma socioéconomique complexe propre à une vaste zone urbaine structurée par classe, niveau d’éducation, type de jouissance du logement, ancienneté des habitations, ainsi que par race et ethnicité. Une analyse des pôles (clusters) révèlent cinq pôles de lieux urbains repérés par l’analyse PCA: ‘lieux aisés’, ‘lieux pauvres’, ‘lieux pour classes moyennes noires’, ‘lieux d’entrée des immigrants’, et ‘lieux pour Américains moyens’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Connection to academic knowledge is a defining feature of modern expertise, and it is often treated as the key to maintaining professional authority. It is unclear, however, just where and when it has to be made and how it might fail. Interviews with economists working in a variety of different settings in the United States suggest that most of their academic knowledge is too abstract to be of much substantive use, and their academic standards of scientific rigor may play only a minor role in legitimizing their day-to-day authority. This does not threaten their status, however, because economists have become entrenched in a variety of organizational settings as possessors of a craft-like "core" of valuable skills. The momentum of this basic institutionalization suggests that although connection to elite academic knowledge is a defining characteristic of modern expertise, it may not always be central to explaining ongoing expert authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the empirical and theoretical research on the rising inequality trend in American labor markets has occurred within labor economics despite long-standing sociological interest in the structure of inequality and despite strong evidence that the trend was produced by institutional as well as technological forces. Several reasons for this imbalance are discussed. The fact of differing inequality trends in the United States and Europe offers an additional perspective on the potential explanations for the American trends. This comparative perspective highlights the role of institutions in producing inequality trends and suggests strategies for potentially productive sociological research on these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]