This book examines the foundation and progress of the Rochester Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative (RMAPI). Poverty has once again become a major issue in American cities, and nowhere more so than Rochester, which has one of the highest rates of poverty in the nation. RMAPI was established to reduce poverty, yet in the five years since its formation the poverty rate is essentially unchanged. Analyzing the reasons behind its failure, this book argues that the very nature of the organizational framework is part of the problem, and that RMAPI’s project is caught up with contradictory imperatives of neo-liberal welfare reforms. More than just a study of local interest, the book uses Rochester as a case study to illuminate the limits of the neo-liberal approach to poverty. It will appeal to all those interested in political science, urban politics, community studies, welfare policy and public administration.
Author(s): Brian Caterino
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 250
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Poverty Takes the Stage
Bibliography
Chapter 2: Critical Theory, The Welfare State, and Neo-liberalism
The Welfare State in Neo-liberal Times
The Rise of Social Rights and Questions of Recognition
Power: Theoretical Debates
Discourse Theory
Critical Theory and Practice: Social Diagnosis
The Breakdown of the Welfare State
Neo-Liberalism and the Welfare State
Transforming the Non-profit Sector
The Dilemma of Neo-liberal Welfare Reform
Bibliography
Chapter 3: Deindustrialization, the Welfare State and Urban Decay
The Deindustrial Condition
Poverty and Deindustrialization
A New Social Contract
Lowered Expectations and Deaths of Despair
Deindustrialization Hits Rochester
Urban Policy and Decline in the Postwar Era
White Flight and Poverty
The Great Society
Neo-liberal Urbanism
Cities as Entrepreneurs
From Entrepreneurialism to Financialization: Cities after 2008
Bibliography
Chapter 4: From a City of Quality to a City of Poverty
Race in Rochester: A Pattern of Discrimination and Neglect
The Legacy of George Eastman
A Second Wave
A City of Quality?
The Aftermath
The Failure of School Integration
Rochester Reacts to Deindustrialization
Entertaining Adventures
Floating in a Sinkhole of Debt
Soccer Bails
Eds and Meds in Rochester
Industrial Devlopment Authority (IDA’s) and Local Favoritism
Poverty Comes to the Fore
A New Map for Fighting Poverty
How Did RMAPI Operate
Bibliography
Chapter 5: Reading Poverty
Prelude: The Policy Environment
How to Read Poverty
Are the Poor Deficient?
The Family Revisited
Poverty and Therapeutic Intervention: Trauma as a Cause of Poverty
Asset Building Approaches
Asset Building in Practice
Predatory Inclusion and Formal Equality
Structural Racism
Poverty and Economic Exploitation
Bibliography
Chapter 6: Following the wrong map: From Social Enterprise to Collective Impact
The Slow Rollout
The Public and the Problems
What Is Collective Impact?
Precursors: Business Adopts Social Impact
A Neo-liberal Trojan Horse?
Private Public Partnerships
Critical Views of Collective Impact
The Problem of Implementation
Collective Impact as a Form of Governance
The Fetish of Data
Collective Impact and System Theory
What Is a System
System Change or Social Change?
The Complexity Problem
Bibliography
Chapter 7: Collective Impact in Action
Collective Impact and the Long Rollout 2
IBM and Collective Impact
Self-Sufficiency or Precarity
Developing Impact in Rochester
RMAPI’s Borg Problem: Who Gets Funded
Is It Collaboration?
Connected Communities and Purpose-Built Communities
The 2020 Report
RMAPI Pilot Programs: Triumph of the Entrepreneurial Self
Conforming to Norms
Bibliography
Chapter 8: Rethinking the Map
Collective Impact 3.0
The New Focus?
Popular Democracy and RMAPI: contradictory impulses
A New Leader
Structural Racism Revisited
Wither System Integration?
Equal Opportunity or Expanded Social Rights?
Martin Luther King: Social Democrat
Bibliography
Index
