The challenge of the Depression -- A new deal for the homeless -- Skid Row in an era of plenty -- Urban renewal and the challenge of homelessness -- Operation Bowery and social scientific inquiry -- The end of the skid-row era -- Conclusion : whither the homeless
Summary
This book explores the efforts of private and public institutions to solve the problem of homelessness by tracing the rise and fall of skid rows in America through the lens of New York's Bowery. Crowded onto skid rows, the homeless lived apart from the middle classes, who saw them as an aberrant population. The homeless have the legal right to exist in modern American cities, yet antihomeless ordinances deny them access to many public spaces. How did the previous generations of urban dwellers deal with tensions between the rights of the homeless and those of other city residents? The author answers this question by tracing the history of skid rows from their rise in the late nineteenth century to their eradication in the mid-twentieth century
