Finding Equality in Local Government

Abstract

The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America, by Michelle Wilde Anderson, is an extraordinary work of scholarship, journalism, and storytelling. It describes four locations around the United States, each of which has experienced what Anderson calls "citywide poverty"--poverty so widespread that it is the norm, rather than the exception. Focusing on these four places, Anderson describes the activists, advocates, organizers, politicians, government officials, and others who work to improve their cities even in the face of desperate circumstances. 

The Fight to Save the Town provides insights into the relationships among social and racial inequality, government action, and human activism. Broadly, it illustrates the connections between equality and governmental structures. More specifically, I argue that the book provides a vision of equality as a product of collaboration between local governments and their residents rather than judicial decision-making. That vision, which effectively links equality with local government and structure, provides a more capacious view of equality than the traditional view that links equality with legal rights.

Keywords: local government, equality, federalism, state government, localism, constitutional law, constitutional rights