In the 1980s, the national recession and high unemployment led to increased violence and crime in cities throughout the United States. The Great Recession of 2007-2008 left many Americans in much worse shape and yet, sociologist Patrick Sharkey notes, “the downturn never made its way out of their homes and onto the streets.”
Sharkey argues that the Obama Administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the 2009 stimulus package, allowed cities to escape many of the problems that plagued urban dwellers in the early 1980s. But now that stimulus funding has ebbed, Sharkey warns that a “historical perspective on urban policy reveals a cycle in which periods of major investment are followed by periods of neglect, disinvestment and decline.”