When Work Disappears: New Implications for Race andUrban Poverty in the Global Economy

This paper discusses the impact of growing joblessness and dwindling workopportunities on inner-city areas in America. The lack of low-skilled manualwork in the inner city is linked to poverty, crime, family dissolution and thesocial life of neighbourhoods. The paper discusses this impact at aneighbourhood-wide, family and individual level, noting the interactionbetween these levels and the intergenerational repercussions that result.The paper goes on to look at race in this context, identifying a new form ofcultural racism. It examines the way race becomes an issue as black peoplebecome disproportionately represented in neighbourhoods where there is ahigh ratio of joblessness and very few work opportunities. The paper showshow this segregation plus its interaction with other changes in society,escalates rates of neighbourhood joblessness and compounds existingproblems in these neighbourhoods.[...]