“Scott W. Allard is one of the nation’s foremost experts on poverty, and Places in Need is a tour de force. This carefully-researched book offers more than innovative economic analysis and important lessons for social policy. It represents a deeply moral call to update our thinking about vulnerable people across America and rethink outdated assumptions about how to assist them. Places in Need must become required reading for anyone who seeks to understand modern American poverty, let alone begin to combat it.”

—Arthur Brooks, president, American Enterprise Institute

“Places in Need tells the story of how poverty has grown dramatically in suburban America due to displacement, immigration, and job loss and how the existing social safety net is ill-equipped to address this new challenge. Scott W. Allard’s analysis expertly marshals both quantitative and qualitative data to give a nuanced account of the difficulties of meeting social needs in suburban locales. His insights and policy recommendations should be carefully studied by policymakers and social service providers as they come to grips with this new reality.”

—Paul Jargowsky, Professor of Public Policy, Rutgers University, Camden

“An exceptionally rich book that astutely focuses on key current issues related to the geography of poverty in the United States and trends therein. Scott W. Allard’s analysis is impressive in both its breadth and depth. His insights regarding the implications of geographic location for anti-poverty policy—how best to support low-income individuals and families in urban, suburban, and rural areas—make Places in Need essential reading for scholars, policymakers, and policy practitioners alike.”

—Lawrence M. Berger, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Social Work and director, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin

Americans think of suburbs as prosperous areas that are relatively free from poverty and unemployment. Yet, today more poor people live in the suburbs than in cities themselves. In Places in Need, social policy expert Scott W. Allard tracks how the number of poor people living in suburbs has more than doubled over the last 25 years, with little attention from either academics or policymakers. Rising suburban poverty has not coincided with a decrease in urban poverty, meaning that solutions for reducing poverty must work in both cities and suburbs. Allard notes that because the suburban social safety net is less developed than the urban safety net, a better understanding of suburban communities is critical for understanding and alleviating poverty in metropolitan areas.

Using census data, administrative data from safety net programs, and interviews with nonprofit leaders in the Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas, Allard shows that poor suburban households resemble their urban counterparts in terms of labor force participation, family structure, and educational attainment. In the last few decades, suburbs have seen increases in single-parent households, decreases in the number of college graduates, and higher unemployment rates. As a result, suburban demand for safety net assistance has increased. Concerning is evidence suburban social service providers—which serve clients spread out over large geographical areas, and often lack the political and philanthropic support that urban nonprofit organizations can command—do not have sufficient resources to meet the demand.

To strengthen local safety nets, Allard argues for expanding funding and eligibility to federal programs such as SNAP and the Earned Income Tax Credit, which have proven effective in urban and suburban communities alike. He also proposes to increase the capabilities of community-based service providers through a mix of new funding and capacity-building efforts.

Places in Need demonstrates why researchers, policymakers, and nonprofit leaders should focus more on the shared fate of poor urban and suburban communities. This account of suburban vulnerability amidst persistent urban poverty provides a valuable foundation for developing more effective antipoverty strategies.

SCOTT W. ALLARD is professor of public policy at the University of Washington’s Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance.

This book, published in 1913, describes the results of the first investigation made by the Committee on Women's Work of the Russell Sage Foundation, part of a series of studies of the condition of women's work in important trades in New York City that demonstrate similar conditions throughout the United States. The bookbinding trade, one of the most important trades for women in the city at the time, is examined in detail. These findings were relevant to many other industries because it presented most of the important problems which confronted women wage-earners at the time.

MARY VAN KLEECK was secretary of the Committee on Women's Work at the Russell Sage Foundation.

Based on Jacob H. Schiff's 1908 argument for the establishment of an unofficial employment bureau for the City of New York for the benefit of the unemployed, this 1909 report, funded by the Russell Sage Foundation, is an examination of the need for such a bureau and an inquiry into the reasons for the discontinuance of other similar labor bureaus that attempted to deal with the same problem.

EDWARD T. DEVINE was Schiff Professor of Social Economy at Columbia University and general secretary of the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York.

A pioneering exploration of housing legislation published in 1914, this book examined the little housing laws in the country at the time, tenement house laws in New York City. It proposed a model housing law which later influenced a number of state and city legislators throughout the country to adapt the proposal into their own laws. An updated and expanded edition was published in 1920.

LAWRENCE VEILLER was secretary of the New York State Tenement House Commission, and First Deputy Tenement Commissioner of the Tenement Department of New York City.

This book, published in 1955, is a successor to Joanna C. Colcord's Your Community: Its Provision for Health, Education, Safety, and Welfare, published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 1939. It is designed as a broadly conceived working manual of community study aimed at not just social workers, like its predecessor, but a more varied group of citizens. It details procedures for conducting the survey, both in its organizational and methodological aspects.

ROLAND L. WARREN was professor of sociology at Alfred University.

This 1917 report on the conditions of the millinery industry, or the trade of making women's hats, functions as a general study of problems more or less common to all industries characterized by seasonal fluctuations in employment. Two separate but often overlapping inquiries were conducted to secure the data presented in this book, involving the study of wages, education, and the particular conditions surrounding a seasonal occupation.

MARY VAN KLEECK was director of the Division of Industrial Studies of the Russell Sage Foundation.

A report of the findings of a study into the utilization of school property after day-class hours, carried out by the Department of Child Hygiene of the Russell Sage Foundation in 1910.

CLARENCE ARTHUR PERRY, Department of Child Hygiene, Russell Sage Foundation

Published in 1920, this paper attempts to explain why school officials and voluntary organizations were not pulling together to expand the school's use as a social center—uncertainty as to the people's will. It proposes that asking the community to decide what uses a social center should have will help in the creating of such an agency.

CLARENCE ARTHUR PERRY, Department of Child Hygiene, Russell Sage Foundation

A paper delivered at the National Conference of Charities and Correction, in 1914.

CLARENCE ARTHUR PERRY, Department of Child Hygiene, Russell Sage Foundation