Johns Hopkins University Press
The Urban Caribbean: Transition to the New Global Economy
Key Metrics
- Alejandro Portes
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Paperback
- 9780801855191
- 8.93 X 5.98 X 0.61 inches
- 0.82 pounds
- Social Science > Sociology - Urban
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
The Urban Caribbean studies urbanization in five countries--Costa Rica, Haiti, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica--during the 1980s and 1990s when the region's economy shifted from one heavily dependent on imports to one directed more to producing exports. This shift caused producers and entrepreneurs to rely more on microenterprises, thus challenging the informal economy networks of the central cities. Sociologist Alejandro Portes and the other contributors use rich, in-depth data to examine both qualitative and quantitative changes in these five countries. Their research method allows them to make generalizations applicable to all five economies while retaining the concreteness of the similarities and differences that make each country unique.
This volume is an incentive to other collaborative efforts to chart the paths taken by the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean as they seek to accommodate to the new global political and economic context....The message of the volume is a convincing one. Because of similarities in the trends affecting countries of the region and policy debates, each country can benefit from the experiences of the others. However, the differences in political structure and in the nature of citizenship mean that social and economic policy debates must take into account the national context.--from the Foreword, by Bryan Roberts, University of Texas-Austin
Author Bio
Alejandro Portes is Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Sociology and director of the Center for Migration and Development at Princeton University.
He is the author of 250 articles and chapters on national development, international migration, Latin American and Caribbean urbanization, and economic sociology. He has published 30 books and special issues. His books include City on the Edge – the Transformation of Miami(California 1993), co-authored with Alex Stepick and winner of the Robert Park Award for best book in urban sociology and the Anthony Leeds Award for best book in urban anthropology in 1995; and Immigrant America: A Portrait, 3rd edition, (California 2006), designated as a Centennial Publication by the University of California Press in 1996.
His current research is on the adaptation process of the immigrant second generation in comparative perspective, the role of institutions on national development, and immigration and the American health system.
Source: Princeton University
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