Anne-Marie Slaughter Examines the "Toxic Work World"

Anne-Marie Slaughter published an essay in the September 20 New York Times's Sunday Review section with the title "A Toxic Work World." In the essay, Slaughter looks at the issues around child child care and caregiving in general in the U.S. workplace. She also makes recommendations to tackle the problems, which, she argues, are leading the economy to "hemorrage talent and hollow out our society." She writes, 

To support care just as we support competition, we will need some combination of the following: high-quality and affordable child care and elder care; paid family and medical leave for women and men; a right to request part-time or flexible work; investment in early education comparable to our investment in elementary and secondary education; comprehensive job protection for pregnant workers; higher wages and training for paid caregivers; community support structures to allow elders to live at home longer; and reform of elementary and secondary school schedules to meet the needs of a digital rather than an agricultural economy.

Paul Jargowsky Makes Waves with Study on "Architecture of Segregation"

Prof. Paul Jargowsky of Rutger-Camden has published a new study, "The Architecture of Segregation: Civil Unrest, the Concentration of Poverty, and Public Policy." is getting noticed in the NY Times, Washington Post and Atlantic, for example. In fact, the lead editorial in the New York Times on Sunday, September 6, was titled after the book and mentioned Jargowsky several times. The introduction to the study states:

Over the past year, scenes of civil unrest have played out in the deteriorating inner-ring suburb of Ferguson and the traditional urban ghetto of inner-city Baltimore. The proximate cause of these conflicts has been brutal interactions between police and unarmed black men, leading to protests that include violent confrontations with police, but no single incident can explain the full extent of the protesters’ rage and frustration. The riots and protests—which have occurred in racially-segregated, high-poverty neighborhoods, bringing back images of the “long, hot summers” of the 1960s—have sparked a national conversation about race, violence, and policing that is long overdue.

Something important, however, is being left out of this conversation: namely, that we are witnessing a nationwide return of concentrated poverty that is racial in nature, and that this expansion and continued existence of high-poverty ghettos and barrios is no accident. These neighborhoods are not the value-free outcome of the impartial workings of the housing market. Rather, in large measure, they are the inevitable and predictable consequences of deliberate policy choices.

To address the root causes of urban violence, police-community tensions, and the enduring legacy of racism, the genesis of urban slums and the forces that sustain them must be understood. As a first step in that direction, this report examines the trends in the population and characteristics of neighborhoods of extreme deprivation.  Some of the key findings include:

• There was a dramatic increase in the number of high-poverty neighborhoods.

• The number of people living in high-poverty ghettos, barrios, and slums has nearly doubled since 2000, rising from 7.2 million to 13.8 million.

• These increases were well under way before the Great Recession began.

• Poverty became more concentrated—more than one in four of the black poor and nearly one in six of the Hispanic poor lives in a neighborhood of extreme poverty, compared to one in thirteen of the white poor.

• To make matters worse, poor children are more likely to reside in high-poverty neighborhoods than poor adults.

• The fastest growth in black concentration of poverty (12.6 percentage points) since 2000 was not in the largest cities, but in metropolitan areas with 500,000 to 1 million persons.

Winston Weinmann to Sail in Hamilton Burr Regatta in NYC on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2015

Come support Princeton sailors and classmate Winston Weinmann (sailing as a "Veteran Duelist") at the 3rd Annual Hamilto -Burr Regatta on Saturday, September 12 in NYC. Racing takes place from 12:30-4:30 pm at the Hudson River Pier at 26th Street (Pier 66) at Hudson River Community Sailing. You can view the racing from park on the shore. Registered spectators may be able to go out on spectator boat (depending on availability). Spectator registration is free on the HBR web site. Party on Lightship Frying Pan from 5 pm, with a cash bar. The awards ceremony is at 5:30 pm and the after-party starts at 9:00 pm.