Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Social Ladders offers a new understanding of a core ideal in political, public, and academic discourses on low-income neighbourhoods: that of promoting upward mobility. This book explores the contradictions between the lofty promises of social mobility in marginalized urban areas, its ambivalent politics, and its complex manifestations in people’s lived experiences. To do so, it draws on policy examples from the United States, the United Kingdom, and western Europe, as well as on in-depth fieldwork in Germany. In particular, the book focuses on more than 60 narrative interviews with upwardly mobile individuals, their family members, and long-term residents in one of Germany’s most stigmatized neighbourhoods. The analysis reveals the restrictive and divisive dimensions of improving progress up the social ladder. It shows how the language and politics of social mobility often ignore the primary needs and problems of disadvantaged communities. And it draws attention to the divisive moments of moving ‘up’ and ‘out’: Social mobility divides neighbourhoods, communities, residents, and family members by giving some people a ticket to move up, while leaving others empty-handed.</jats:p>