The Age of Extremes: Concentrated Affluence and Poverty in the Twenty-First Century
Author(s)
Massey, Douglas S.
Abstract
The resurgence of inequality at the end of the twentieth century is occurring in tandem with rapid growth in urbanization. The geography of population is at once becoming more dense and more stratified. Increasingly, the poor live in a world of crime, disease, violence and family breakdown. The world of the rich is more and more one of isolation and privilege. The article selected here projects these trends into the twenty-first century, arguing that “we have entered a new age of inequality in which class lines will grow more rigid as they are amplified and reinforced by a powerful process of geographic concentration,” and predicting that without positive interventions, the future will be bleak, divided and violent.
