LAUSR

existing and future efforts ought to be judged. I expect that all of the authors would suggest that a successful neighborhood politics would deliver decent affordable housing, good schools, and well-funded amenities such as parks, libraries, and swimming pools. But what of jobs and city revenues? It seems unrealistic to imagine that a neighborhood would flourish if it experienced a high rate of unemployment or poverty, or received little investment. If so, this implies that what is needed for vital neighborhoods is not simply a neighborhood politics but a refashioned political economy in which ordinary working-class people can command a larger share of the proceeds of growth than under the old policies. As John Betancur, Karen Mossberger, and Yue Zhang point out regarding Chicago, “[r]esidents and community-based organizations are unable to address the structural inequalities that shape opportunities within poor communities. Such inequalities demand attention beyond the neighborhoods or local levels” (p. 105). Regrettably, this essential component of neighborhood prosperity has been placed beyond the scope of Urban Neighborhoods in a New Era since it takes extant inequalities and the political economy as givens.