Katznelson, Ira. City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Katznelson explores the resurgence of community activism in the sixties through a study of the working-class Washington Heights-Inwood neighborhood on the north side of Manhattan. He explores the specific demographic changes in that neighborhood over the years, and the resulting changes to the political and physical landscape of the community. He describes the neighborhood's battles over ethnic "territory," education and representation issues with the city of New York. Ultimately, Katznelson finds that because the working class views labor politics and community politics to be unrelated separate spheres, community issues directly tied to larger, broader economic issues go unaddressed. Consequently, attempts at reforming the conditions of working and lower class neighborhoods fall short because reformers fail to bridge the gap between the two perceived spheres. This is primarily a study in urban politics, but would be a good book to use when considering the political aspects of an urban landscape because it deals frankly with issues of class in urban spaces, rather than simply concentrating on race. [E. Benedict]