Book Review: Hope and Despair in the American City
Review: Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh By Gerald Grant The book’s title is flattering enough, but sociologist Gerald Grant finds plenty of laudatory things to say about Wake County’s public schools in this 2009 study of urban blight and education reform. Grant is a retired professor of Education and Sociology at Syracuse University who grew up in Syracuse, NY and returned to it in 1978. Clearly distressed by the steady decline and uneven recovery of the core sections of Syracuse, Grant has done extensive archival research about both segregation and urban planning in preparation for writing this book, which benefits from his interwoven personal experiences. A scholarly project, Hope and Despair in the American City […]
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