The Unheavenly City by {author}: summary and why it matters

What it argues

Banfield, a Harvard political scientist, argued that American cities had improved in most measurable respects, in housing, income and opportunity, even as the public thought them in crisis. What remained was a set of problems that he linked to the lower class and its present-orientation: a focus on immediate gratification rather than planning for the future.

He claimed that this orientation, not discrimination or lack of money alone, explains persistent poverty, crime and school failure among a minority of the urban population, and that conventional programs of reform and redevelopment therefore could not succeed. He advocated policies that account for time horizons, such as using incentives and enforcing order, and he opposed those that rely on the transformation of attitudes.

The book was controversial, was denounced for its language, and cost Banfield some of his standing in the academic world.

Why it matters

It remains a landmark in the debate on culture and poverty, and its arguments about incentives and time preference foreshadow later works. Readers will have to decide how far the data support Banfield's inference from class attitudes to behavior.

About the author

Edward C. Banfield (1916-1999) was an American political scientist who taught at the University of Chicago and Harvard and wrote The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, a study of an Italian village. He served on a commission on urban affairs in the Nixon years. A revised edition, The Unheavenly City Revisited, appeared in 1974.

Who should read it

Readers of urban policy and the culture of poverty debate.