Reviews

Abstract

Given the great contemporary importance of the subject matter of this book and the proliferation of books and research programmes concerned with unemployment it is rather surprising that "Urban Unemployment" has few if any serious competitors. In essence this is a textbook presenting a brief summary of the relevant theory, analysis, and research findings which seek to describe and explain why the phenomenon of unemployment is particularly acute in the inner areas of our larger towns and cities and the policy measures which have been developed to combat it.A major theme of the book is the stress placed by the author on the need to see policy and policy proposals in the context of the proposers' analytical perspectives.In relation to urban labour market analysis the author identifies three . competing perspectives which he calls the competitive market perspective, the structuralist perspective and the radical perspective and despite a somewhat confusing reference to "the new right" (p. 29) under the structuralist perspective it later becomes clear that these perspectives correspond broadly to Neo-classical, Keynesian and Marxist perspectives. Although this is clearly not a unique approach it is relatively rare for books on these issues to go on to attempt an even handed treatment of ideas from each of these perspectives. Chris Hasluck tackles this difficult task and in my view succeeds to a considerable degree. My main criticism of his attempt is that the analytical sections in the earlier part of the book deal rather briefly with radical approaches and theoretical perspectives though this is somewhat offset by a relatively detailed chapter on radical policy 54 initiatives later in the book.