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Book Review: Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era

The authors are well positioned to address the relationship between economy and community. Thad Williamson is a graduate student with extensive community advocacy experience. David Imbroscio is a professor of political science at the University of Louisville. Gar Alperovitz has championed community development efforts for years and is currently president of the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives. Their well-written treatise is tightly reasoned, factually based, and satisfactorily documented. Although the book is polemic, it will be of interest to scholars and is also suitable for classroom use. The skeleton of their argument is easy to follow: (1) The viability of American democracy is threatened by the loss of “geographically demarcated communities in which a diverse array of citizens join together in self-governance—in short the building blocks of democratic practice” (p. 22). (2) The disruption of place-based social and political ties is due to increasing economic dislocation caused by the vagaries of the market in an era of rapid change and ineffective public policies. (3) There are policy solutions that can ameliorate this problem. As in most good polemics, complexity is sacrificed for clarity, focus, and a good plot line. The introduction sets the course for the book. In providing an overview, it describes the importance of community to a well-functioning polity and to democracy in general. Concern for community and the welfare of fellow citizens, as opposed to blatant self-interest, justifies forms of collective action. In their discussion of democracy and community, the authors ignore factors other than the loss of placebased community that have been undermining democracy such as the media’s lack of substance and the U.S. system of campaign finance. Similarly, the authors identify alternative rationale for seeking stable communities (other than an improved democracy), but these are not emphasized. The rapidity of economic change is responsible for weakening communities. Although specific mechanisms are not elaborated, it is reasonable to assume that when residents are insecure about their own jobs and those of their children, they are less likely to invest in establishing friendships or otherwise improving their communities. As this kind of anomie increases, so does the sense of powerlessness and apathy that reinforces the factors that caused the initial decline of the community. The first part of the book examines the “triple threat” (p. 23) to community stability: the loss of jobs because of globalization, the shifting location of jobs within the