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This book relays a compelling narrative of the U.S. economy's struggle to emerge from the Great Recession of 2008. It explains the causes and impact on working Americans of the most catastrophic economic policy failure since the 1920s. Economic growth since the late 1970s has been slow and inequitably distributed, largely as a result of poor policy choices. These choices only got worse in the 2000s, leading to an anemic economic expansion. What growth we did see in the economy was fueled by staggering increases in private-sector debt and a housing bubble that artificially inflated wealth by trillions of dollars. As had been predicted, the bursting of the housing bubble had disastrous consequences for the broader economy, spurring a financial crisis and a rise in joblessness that dwarfed those resulting from any recession since the Great Depression. The fallout from the Great Recession makes it near certain that there will be yet another lost decade of income growth for typical families, whose incomes had not been boosted by the previous decade's sluggish and localized economic expansion. In its broad narrative of how the economy has failed to deliver for most Americans over much of the past three decades, the book also offers compelling graphic evidence on jobs, incomes, wages, and other measures of economic well-being most relevant to low-and middle-income workers. It tracks these trends carefully, giving a lesson in economic history that is readable yet rigorous in its analysis.

Labor unions remain the largest membership-based organizations in major North American cities. As unions become more involved in the daily life of the city, they find themselves confronting the familiar dilemma of how to fold union priorities into broader campaigns that address non-union workers and the lives of union members beyond the workplace. If we are right to believe that the future of the labor movement is an urban one, union activists and staffers, urban policymakers, elected officials, and members of the public alike will require a fuller understanding of what impels unions to become involved in urban policy issues, what dilemmas structure the choices unions make, and what impact unions have on the lives of urban residents, beyond their members. This book serves as a road map toward both a stronger labor movement and a socially just urbanism. It presents the findings of a collaborative project which investigated how and why labor unions were becoming more involved in urban regulation and urban planning. It assesses the effectiveness of this involvement in terms of labor goals as well as broader social consequences of union strategies, such as expanding access to public services, improving employment equity, and making neighborhoods more affordable. Focusing on four key economic sectors (film, hospitality, green energy, and child care), the book reveals that unions can exert a surprising level of influence in various aspects of urban policymaking and that they can have a significant impact on how cities are changing and on the experiences of urban residents.