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A review by bike
Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do about It by Richard V. Reeves
A little more surface level than I would have hoped but in general a useful resource/framing.
some thoughts:
- really glad he talked about nimbyism as a form of opportunity hoarding. would have loved if he'd gone more in depth
- despite the title, the book doesn't focus that much on opportunity hoarding. mostly focuses on diagnosing the problem (lack of true meritocracy)
- frustrating how often he referenced j.d. vance, said things like "many conservatives have authentic, deep, often religiously based views about sex and contraception", said he was optimistic that trump would continue obama era policy to increase equity (lol)
- his section on reducing unwanted pregnancies - I agree it's a good goal but the language he used made me uncomfortable: "the key is to ensure that the liberalization of attitudes toward sex does not lead to a liberalization of attitudes toward the moral responsibility to plan when, how, and with whom we bring children into the world. Causal sex is fine. Casual childbearing is not". YIKES.he didn't adequately address the extent to which reproductive justice is threatened in this country. Ridiculous to act as if this is an issue of "casual childbearing" (wtf) and not an issue of states literally mandating scientifically inaccurate sex ed, funding crisis pregnancy centers that mislead women in order to get them to continue their pregnancies, limited access to contraception, etc. Notably, he did not advocate for increased abortion access at all, just increased contraceptive access. Also, he didn't clearly link how unwanted pregnancies related to the topic of his book (opportunity hoarding). For those reading this section, I'd recommend just reading The Turnaway Study or work by that author instead
- he cited some old, outdated studies (e.g., the "conversation gap" between poor and wealthy children) whose methodology has been criticized (https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/06/01/615188051/lets-stop-talking-about-the-30-million-word-gap)
some thoughts:
- really glad he talked about nimbyism as a form of opportunity hoarding. would have loved if he'd gone more in depth
- despite the title, the book doesn't focus that much on opportunity hoarding. mostly focuses on diagnosing the problem (lack of true meritocracy)
- frustrating how often he referenced j.d. vance, said things like "many conservatives have authentic, deep, often religiously based views about sex and contraception", said he was optimistic that trump would continue obama era policy to increase equity (lol)
- his section on reducing unwanted pregnancies - I agree it's a good goal but the language he used made me uncomfortable: "the key is to ensure that the liberalization of attitudes toward sex does not lead to a liberalization of attitudes toward the moral responsibility to plan when, how, and with whom we bring children into the world. Causal sex is fine. Casual childbearing is not". YIKES.he didn't adequately address the extent to which reproductive justice is threatened in this country. Ridiculous to act as if this is an issue of "casual childbearing" (wtf) and not an issue of states literally mandating scientifically inaccurate sex ed, funding crisis pregnancy centers that mislead women in order to get them to continue their pregnancies, limited access to contraception, etc. Notably, he did not advocate for increased abortion access at all, just increased contraceptive access. Also, he didn't clearly link how unwanted pregnancies related to the topic of his book (opportunity hoarding). For those reading this section, I'd recommend just reading The Turnaway Study or work by that author instead
- he cited some old, outdated studies (e.g., the "conversation gap" between poor and wealthy children) whose methodology has been criticized (https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/06/01/615188051/lets-stop-talking-about-the-30-million-word-gap)