Dividing Paradise

Conversations about housing, rapid community change, and neighborhood inequality often stop at the edge of American cities. But for places that have found stability by reorienting the local economy toward tourism, the story is more complicated. As Sherman follows residents of Paradise Valley, Washington, who struggle to find affordable housing, adapt to new economic opportunities, and navigate class and generational conflict, her book illuminates deep divides. Rather than valorizing or mourning, Dividing Paradise offers a fresh, forward-looking perspective on rural America that does not shy away from its complex, modern problems.—Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City Meticulously researched and engagingly written, this book shines new light on social class in America today by studying the clash between long-standing residents of a rural community struggling with economic precarity and well-heeled urban newcomers who are attracted to the community's natural amenities but also blind to their own class privilege.—Leif Jensen, Distinguished Professor of Rural Sociology and Demography, The Pennsylvania State University