Welcome to The Lost Debate, a show for Politically Ecclectics. I'm Ravi Gupta, and in this special episode, I am talking to Professor Luke Schaefer, who is there Herman and Amalie Cohn Professor and Associate Dean at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. There he directs poverty solutions, a presidential initiative that partners with communities

to find new ways to prevent and alleviate poverty.

He is the co-author of an incredible book called The Injustice of Place

with a few of his colleagues, Catherine Eden and Timothy Nelson.

This book is spectacular.

It's all about how, where you grow up in this country

is as important as who you are, who your parents are. And in many ways, actually, who you are,

who your parents are is the reflection of where you grew up in the quality of your schools,

the quality of your medical services. And most importantly, some of the other things that we

actually don't spend

enough time talking about in this podcast, like the quality of public spaces and gathering norms and

just optimism. This is a book that blends statistics, history, and in-person interviews.

It's extremely thorough. It's at times depressing, but it's also inspiring. So, Luke,

welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I really enjoyed the way you described the book, so I wish I could

describe it as well as that. Thank you. Well, I was saying offline that I've spent a lot of time

in Mississippi, and actually a couple months ago, I was in the Delta. I started

Mississippi's first charter school, so actually when you talk about a lot of the data around

economic mobility and the sort of crisis of corruption and inequality within the schools and

segregation academies and just the layer upon layer upon

layer of history that is weighing down the disadvantaged in Mississippi. I learned so much

from your account of Mississippi, including the history of the Delta, which is a fascinating

history. So really good job there.

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