The Price of Paradise

A study of how lack of collaboration in local decision-making has led to looming crises facing US cities and local governments.

“The way in which Troutt narrates the issue of inequality in America is an exceptional example of how to present such a controversial issue to academic and nonacademic audiences. Laced with stories form his past and from those on the other side of the tracks, Trout impresses upon the reader’s conscience that message that metropolitan and economic equity benefits everyone.” —Social Forces

American communities are facing chronic problems: fiscal stress, urban decline, environmental sprawl, mass incarceration, political isolation, disproportionate foreclosures and severe public health risks. In The Price of Paradise, David Troutt argues that it is a lack of mutuality in our local decision making that has led to this looming crisis facing cities and local governments.

Arguing that there are structural flaws in the American dream, Troutt investigates the role that place plays in our thinking and how we have organized our communities to create or deny opportunity. Legal rules and policies that promoted mobility for most citizens simultaneously stifled and segregated a growing minority by race, class and—most importantly—place.

A conversation about America at the crossroads, The Price of Paradise is a multilayered exploration of the legal, economic and cultural forces that contribute to the squeeze on the middle class, the hidden dangers of growing income and wealth inequality and the literature on how growth and consumption patterns are environmentally unsustainable.

“Troutt’s passion for his subject is evident on every page in this incredibly well-written volume.” —Comparative Sociology

“A well-researched book that should be read by both undergraduate and graduate students interested in inequality and urban problems.” —Journal of Children and Poverty