We are in a bind," writes Evelyn M. Perry. While conventional
wisdom asserts that residential racial and economic integration
holds great promise for reducing inequality in the United States,
Americans are demonstrably not very good at living with difference.
Perry's analysis of the multiethnic, mixed-income Milwaukee
community of Riverwest, where residents maintain relative stability
without insisting on conformity, advances our understanding of why
and how neighborhoods matter. In response to the myriad urban
quantitative assessments, Perry examines the impacts of
neighborhood diversity using more than three years of ethnographic
fieldwork and interviews. Her in-depth examination of life "on the
block" expands our understanding of the mechanisms by which
neighborhoods shape the perceptions, behaviors, and opportunities
of those who live in them. Perry challenges researchers'
assumptions about what "good" communities look like and what
well-regulated communities want.
Live and Let Live shifts
the conventional scholarly focus from "What can integration do?" to
"How is integration done?"