The Servant Class City: Urban Revitalization versus the Working Poor in San Diego (Volume 25) (Posthumanities)

San Diego, California, is frequently viewed as a model for American urban revitalization. It looks like a success story, with blight and poverty replaced by high-rises and jobs. But David J. Karjanen shows that the much-touted job opportunities for poor people have been concentrated in low-paying service work as the cost of living in San Diego has soared. The Servant Class City documents how, over a period of three decades, San Diego’s urban transformation actually eroded the economic standing of the city’s working poor. Karjanen demonstrates that urban policy in San Diego, which has been devoted to increasing tourism, has fostered the creation of jobs that do not actually provide either livable wages or paths to upward mobility. Marshaling a wealth of heretofore uncollected data, he challenges the presumption that decades-long stagnation of job mobility in the united states is a result of insufficient worker training or a “skills mismatch,” or is attributable to various personal qualities of the urban poor. Karjanen interweaves profiles of people with a compelling presentation of data. Each chapter addresses a significant topic: hospitality industry jobs, retail work, informal employment, “fringe banking,” and economic barriers to mobility. In revealing the true story of the “poverty traps” that are associated with low-wage jobs in the service economy, The Servant Class City complicates the rosy picture of life in an American tourist boomtown. __The Servant Class City__ demonstrates that for San Diego’s inner city revitalization, focusing on new development, visitor services, and high-rises overlooks the dramatic growth in low-wage service work, and persistent challenges facing poor, and working poor inner city residents. The book documents how over in a 30 year period, San Diego’s urban revitalization targeted specific industries, creating thousands of low-wage jobs and transforming the inner city, while at the same time broader economic trends further eroded the economic standing of the urban poor and working poor. As a result, inner city revitalization was planned and dependent on the continued expansion of poor and working poor households, while a range of other economic challenges, from payday lending and check cashing to unaffordable housing and limited social safety nets, have made the economic standing of the urban poor and working poor even more precarious, despite dramatic urban revitalization. David J. Karjanen argues that this process, as well as the broader efforts of urban policy, fails to adequately address the highly complex economic problems of the urban and working poor, and only a dramatic re-thinking of these issues will generate substantial solutions. San Diego, California, is frequently viewed as a model for American urban revitalisation. It looks like a success story, with blight and poverty replaced by high-rises and jobs. But David J. Karjanen shows that the much-touted job opportunities for poor people have been concentrated in low-paying service work as the cost of living in San Diego has soared. He documents how, over a period of three decades, San Diego's urban transformation actually eroded the economic standing of the city's working poor Contents Acknowledgments Introduction I. Changing Urban Fortunes 1. Subsidizing Capital and Expanding Low-Wage Work 2. A Good Job Is Hard to Find II. Working in the Servant Class 3. Working in the Hospitality Industry 4. Working Retail in the Inner City 5. Working on, off, and around the Books III. Living in the Servant Class Economy 6. Do-It-Yourself Safety Nets 7. Asset Poverty and the High Cost of Fringe Banking 8. The Low-Income Trap Conclusion Appendixes Bibliography Index