This volume of The ANNALS brings together a leading set of scholars to present new research on trends in the spatial forms of immigration that are transforming the American landscape—the effects of "the world in a city." With a distinct analytic focus, the volume takes a comparative approach, examining recent immigration trends, disaggregating by ethnicity or immigrant type wherever possible, focusing on core features of the nation's social fabric (e.g., violence, legitimacy of social institutions, governance, economic well-being), and empirically going beyond the big cities of traditional concern to a host of smaller cities and towns reaching into far-flung pockets of the country. The lineup includes papers on both familiar cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami; as well as places as different as San Antonio; Nashville; Boston; Dublin; Hazleton, Pennsylvania; and St. James, Minnesota. While the places studied and features of their social fabric may differ, the social processes underlying the spatial forms of immigration are shown to be largely the same. This volume will be of interest to social scientists from a broad range of disciplines who engage in research and teaching on issues related to immigration; policy-makers; and individuals working on immigration-policy research.

The Routledge Handbook of Small Towns addresses the theoretical, methodical, and practical issues related to the development of small towns and neighbouring countryside. Small towns play a very important role in spatial structure by performing numerous significant developmental functions for rural areas. At the local scale, they act as engines for economic growth of rural regions and as a link in the system of connections between large urban centres and the countryside. The book addresses the role of small towns in the local development of regions in countries with different levels of development and economic systems, including those in Europe, Africa, South America, Asia, and Australia. Chapters address the functional structure of small towns, relations between small towns and rural areas, and the challenges of spatial planning in the context of shaping the development of small towns. Students and scholars of urban planning, urban geography, rural geography, political geography, historical geography, and population geography will learn about the role of small towns in the local development of countries representing different economic systems and developmental conditions.

Latino Homicide is the first empirically based, but readable book for courses to counter the conventional wisdom that immigrant populations only contribute crime to their communities. For this second edition, Martinez further emphasizes his argument with updated data and the addition of a new city, San Antonio. With fascinating case studies from police reports and actual cases from six varied cities, Latino homicide rates are revealed to be markedly lower than one would expect, given the economic deprivation of these urban areas. Far from dangerous or criminal, these communities often have exceptionally strong social networks precisely because of their shared immigrant experiences. Martinez skillfully refutes negative stereotypes in a coherent and critically rigorous analysis of the issues.

The Nurture Versus Biosocial Debate in Criminology: On the Origins of Criminal Behavior and Criminality takes a contemporary approach to address the sociological and the biological positions of human behavior by allowing preeminent scholars in criminology to speak to the effects of each on a range of topics. Kevin M. Beaver, J.C. Barnes, and Brian B. Boutwell aim to facilitate an open and honest debate between the more traditional criminologists who focus primarily on environmental factors and contemporary biosocial criminologists who examine the interplay between biology/genetics and environmental factors.

In less than a generation, the dominant image of American cities has transformed from one of crisis to revitalization. Poverty, violence, and distressed schools still make headlines, but central cities and older suburbs are attracting new residents and substantial capital investment. In most accounts, native-born empty nesters, their twentysomething children, and other educated professionals are credited as the agents of change. Yet in the past decade, policy makers and scholars across the United States have come to understand that immigrants are driving metropolitan revitalization at least as much and belong at the center of the story. Immigrants have repopulated central city neighborhoods and older suburbs, reopening shuttered storefronts and boosting housing and labor markets, in every region of the United States. Immigration and Metropolitan Revitalization in the United States is the first book to document immigrant-led revitalization, with contributions by leading scholars across the social sciences. Offering radically new perspectives on both immigration and urban revitalization and examining how immigrants have transformed big cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, as well as newer destinations such as Nashville and the suburbs of Boston and New Jersey, the volume's contributors challenge traditional notions of revitalization, often looking at working-class communities. They explore the politics of immigration and neighborhood change, demolishing simplistic assumptions that dominate popular debates about immigration. They also show how immigrants have remade cities and regions in Latin America, Africa, and other places from which they come, linking urbanization in the United States and other parts of the world. Contributors: Kenneth Ginsburg, Marilynn S. Johnson, Michael B. Katz, Gary Painter, Robert J. Sampson, Gerardo Francisco Sandoval, A.K. Sandoval-Strausz, Thomas J. Sugrue, Rachel Van Tosh, Jacob L. Vigdor, Domenic Vitiello, Jamie Winders.

This title provides comprehensive analyses of current knowledge about the unwarranted disparities in dealings with the criminal justice system faced by some disadvantaged minority groups in all developed countries

This volume provides information and analyses to better grasp the social implications of geographical borders as well as the individuals who travel between them and those who live in border regions. Sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, linguists, and scholars of international relations and public health are just some of the authors contributing to Rethinking Borders. The diversity in the authors’ disciplines and the topics they focus on exemplify the intricacies of borders and their manifold effects. This openness to so many schools of thought stands in contrast to the solidification of stricter borders across the globe. The contributions range from case studies of migrants’ sense of belonging and safety to theoretical discussions about migration and globalization, from empirical studies about immigrant practices and exclusionary laws to ethical concerns about the benefits of inclusion. It is timely that this collective work is published in the middle of a pandemic that has affected every single part of the world. Unprecedented border closures and stringent travel restrictions have not been enough to contain the virus entirely. As COVID-19 shows, diseases, ideas, and xenophobic and racist discourses know no borders. Plans that transcend borders are vital when dealing with global threats, such as climate change and pandemics.

A major reappraisal of crime and punishment in America The huge prison buildup of the past four decades has few defenders, yet reforms to reduce the numbers of those incarcerated have been remarkably modest. Meanwhile, an ever-widening carceral state has sprouted in the shadows, extending its reach far beyond the prison gate. It sunders families and communities and reworks conceptions of democracy, rights, and citizenship—posing a formidable political and social challenge. In Caught, Marie Gottschalk examines why the carceral state remains so tenacious in the United States. She analyzes the shortcomings of the two dominant penal reform strategies—one focused on addressing racial disparities, the other on seeking bipartisan, race-neutral solutions centered on reentry, justice reinvestment, and reducing recidivism. With a new preface evaluating the effectiveness of recent proposals to reform mass incarceration, Caught offers a bracing appraisal of the politics of penal reform.

American immigrants are often considered symbols of hope and promise. Presidential candidates point to their immigrant roots, Ellis Island is celebrated as a national monument, and the melting pot remains a popular, if somewhat tarnished, American analogy. At the same time, images of impoverished Mexicans swarming across the Mexican-American border and boatloads of desperate Haitian and Cuban refugees depict America as a nation under siege. While governments and business interests generally welcome aliens for the economic benefits they generate, the success of these groups paradoxically stirs distrust and envy, leading to discrimination, oppression, and, in some cases, eviction. Surveying the political and economic history of American immigration, Thomas Muller compellingly argues that the clamor at America's gate should be a cause of pride, not anxiety; a sign of vigor, not an omen of decline. Illustrating that recent waves of immigration have facilitated urban renewal, Muller emphasizes the many ways in which aliens have lessened our cities' social problems rather than contributing to them. Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and San Francisco, traditional gateways to other continents, have all benefited from the contributions of immigrants. To assess perceived and actual costs of absorbing the new immigrants, Muller examines their impact on city income, housing, minority jobs, public services, and wages. But Muller argues that noneconomic concerns (such as recent attempts to formalize English as the country's official language) frequently mirror deeply-rooted fears that could explain the cyclical pattern of American attitudes toward immigrants over the last three centuries. The nation, he contends, may again be turning inward, initiating a period of growing hostility toward the foreign-born. Nonetheless, higher entry levels for skilled immigrants would improve the technological standing of the U.S., increase the standard of living for the middle class, and facilitate the resurgence of our inner cities.