Ronald H. Bayor

The Second Ghetto Then and Now

Hirsch provided a model that works well in understanding earlier southern as well as northern cities. But how well does this model fit cities today? In Atlanta, the creation of mixed-income housing to replace traditional public housing follows the same plan of tenant removal as before, although class rather than race is the defining factor. In a black-run city with increasing middle-class African American suburbanization, officials are urging the middle class, of all races, to return to the city. The mixed-income housing is being used to reshape the ghetto and draw the middle class back. As with the previous white-controlled city government, little concern is given to the housing and relocation issues of the black poor.

Urban Renewal, Public Housing and the Racial Shaping of Atlanta

A number of American cities experienced urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s. Historians and others who have chronicled the urban changes of those decades have cited economic redevelopment as the motivating factor in the rebuilding of the downtown and the relocation of the black population from that area. For example, Carl Abbott in his analysis of Sunbelt cities noted that “the rebuilding of downtown districts was intended to secure two related economic goals.” The first was to make the city more appealing as a center of investment and business activity as opposed to competing cities; the second was to enhance the downtown area in light of suburban development which might attract business away from the central city. Clarence Stone-in his study of Atlantas renewal also indicates the primacy of economic factors as the motivation for rebuilding the citys downtown and uprooting the black population.

Mayoral Racial History in Four Cities

The four cities examined in this research—Detroit, New Orleans, Chicago, and Charlotte—reveal the centrality of mayoral politics in racial polarization. The campaigns and the governance of both the white and black mayors in these citites set the tone for how race and politics were mutually affective and how racial conflict emerged.

Engineering the New South: Georgia Tech, 1885-1985

The Georgia Institute of Technology as well as the University of Georgia celebrated landmark birthdays of their foundings in 1985 (UGA its bicentennial; GT its centennial). Both, fortunately, have issued honest and creditable histories to mark their anniversaries. The Universitys bicentennial history appeared early in 1985 and had one author, Professor Thomas G. Dyer. Techs history (also published by the University of Georgia Press) was released in October and had the disadvantage of six authors and no discernible coordinating editor. Yet the result is better than might be expected from a book written by a committee. Six members of the Georgia Tech faculty, all of them historians, joined in a cooperative effort to produce Engineering the New South. The preface specifies who had primary responsibil-

Book Review: The Fourth Wave: California's Newest ImmigrantsThe Fourth Wave: California's Newest Immigrants. By MullerThomas and EspenshadeThomas J.Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute, 1985. Pp. xvii + 217.

Since 1945 over 2 million aliens have entered the United States outside our normal immigration channels. Whether categorized as displaced persons, emergency migrants or refugees, they have come from all parts of the world. Some have landed in boats on our shores, commanding our attention and our compassion. Others comprised the poignant images virtually burned into our national conscience by nightly news reports. They too required our compassion. Still others entered by different means. But whatever the circumstance, whatever the means of entry, they have come to the United States seeking refuge and hope. Professors Loescher and Scanlan have chronicled this history, describing the political and humanitarian forces that have shaped American refugee policy or, perhaps more aptly, refugee policies. In this process, they have identified three groups whose thinking has shaped ( and perhaps sometimes distorted) these policies: restrictionists, whose focus is on the domestic impact of refugee admissions rather than the persecution suffered by these victims; humanitarians, who believe our doors should be open to all those needing refuge; and idealogues, the most powerful group, who see refugees as assets to be used in a worldwide struggle against communism. For this last group, refugee policy has been an adjunct of foreign policy. Loescher and Scanlan tell this story chronologically, proceeding from the plight of those displaced after World War II, considering the situation of Eastern Europeans threatened by Soviet invasions, examining the ghastly vision of Vietnamese and Cambodians ravaged by circumstances of almost unimaginable horror, and concluding with an extensive treatment of the massive waves of Cubans who have entered this country. They recount extensively the political dynamics that preceded our admission of these people, carefully, indeed meticulously, detailing the social and political debate surrounding these admissions. In this respect the

12.95 (paper).

Places immigration to California in historical perspective and provides a profile of recent immigration in terms of numbers and characteristics. Discusses the effects of the recent immigration wave on Southern California in terms of jobs, wage levels, income distribution, the public sector, and the Los Angeles and California economies.

The Fourth Wave: California's Newest Immigrants.

Now that the teacher, hopefully, may have acquired more sociological sophistication through a better understanding of the Puerto Rican in the States and the background from which he comes, there is more that is required, however, to insure success in the classroom: the development of a teaching methodology that can harness successfully this background and understanding. Here is where the book is not as helpful as it should be.