Confronting the Heartbreak and Injustice of Eviction

• Author: Dan Immergluck
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12718
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• Date: 01 March 2017

Book Reviews 305

Confronting the Heartbreak and Injustice of Eviction

Dan Immergluck is professor of city and

regional planning at Georgia Institute of

Technology. Immergluck researches housing

markets and finance, and related policy. He

is a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve

Bank of Atlanta. He has been quoted in

print and broadcast media, including the

New York Times, Washington Post, NPR

, and

many other outlets. He has authored four

books and over four dozen journal articles.

His latest book is

Preventing the Next

Mortgage Crisis

(Rowman and Littlefield,

2015).

E-mail: dan.immergluck@coa.gatech.edu

Matthew Desmond , Evicted: Poverty and Prof‌i t in the

American City ( New York : Crown , 2016 ). 418pp.

$17.03 (hardcover), ISBN: 9780553447439 .

I f you ask a social scientist to name the books that

have most influenced her passion for her work, at

least one ethnography is likely to appear on the

list. Similarly, if you ask a policy advocate about the

books that influenced her career path, an ethnography

is likely to turn up. It may not always be a purely

scholarly ethnography; rather, it may be the work

of a deep-diving journalist, such as Alex Kotlowitz

or Barbara Ehrenreich. Whether by scholars or by

journalists, ethnographies have a power that other

works of social science or journalism do not. They

have the power to move us, to create a fundamental

empathy with their subjects. They also have a critical

additional power, the power to unite a broad spectrum

of readers (from social scientists to politicians to lay

readers of all stripes), creating a common touchstone

that can help spur or revive a political or social

movement and result in policy change.

Most ethnographies—even good ones—do not

achieve such results. They may reach a segment of a

policy network or appeal to a subfield of an academic

discipline. Yet some books do reach a greater height

and breadth. They not only become required reading

of academics in a field but are also widely read by

congressional staff, journalists, and even the general

public. Some even make the New York Times Best

Sellers list. Such a book is Matthew Desmond ’ s

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City .

Desmond, a sociologist at Harvard and a recipient of

a MacArthur Foundation genius grant, has written

a remarkable book. It is remarkable not just for its

scholarship, which is excellent, but especially for its

impact, which extends far beyond the silo of urban

sociology.

One key area of potential—even likely—impact is on

the world of housing policy. The book ’ s contribution

here is not that it offers new policy alternatives; its

key recommendations have been proposed before.

Rather, it offers its recommendations in a much more

Danny L. Balfour , Editor

Dan Immergluck

Georgia Institute of Technology

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 2, pp. 305–308. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12718.