stefanicox's Reviews (519)

I'll admit that I didn't make it through the entire volume, but only because I don't own it and had to keep returning it to the library. This is a beautiful collection of poems from one of the best-known African American poets. Her style sometimes led me to feel like I wasn't grasping the entire meaning of the poem, and there was probably a lot below the surface of each one. But if you just let the language wash over you while you read, you really start to appreciate her words.

I was actually pretty surprised at how much I didn't enjoy this book, since I had been looking forward to reading it for a while. Perhaps it's because Moretti's basic premise, that economic goods clusters are great for the economy because they promote growth, is really not anything new (see anything that Michael Porter has ever written). There might be a slight new angle in that the technology sector is now the beloved cluster example of choice and is different from past clusters like manufacturing because it is a knowledge-based good, rather than a physical labor-based good.

My biggest objection throughout the book however, has more to do with the way the author treated the subject of low- and moderate-income individuals, when he chose to do so at all. His suggestion for people losing out because they don't have knowledge-skills is to simply move cities to where there might be more jobs. And there is a continual undervaluing of the impacts of displacement and systemic inequalities in education and neighborhood stratification. I would have liked to have seen a much deeper analysis of all the externalities of the growth he discusses in his book.