Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Edward C. Banfield
    -ENTRY: Edward C. Banfield (Contemporary Thinkers)
    -PAPERS: City Planning & Landscape Architecture Virtual Library > CPLA Special Collections > Edward C. Banfield Collection (Illinois Library)
    -ETEXT: American Foreign Aid Doctrines by Edward C. Banfield
    -ETEXT: Here the People Rule by Edward C. Banfield (AEI, December 02, 1991)
    -ETEXT: The Unheavenly City by Edward C. Banfield
    -ESSAY: Advice to Graduates About Advice: Never mind who said it or about what. (Edward C. Banfield, Spring 2002, Claremont Review of Books)
    -ETEXT: Ends and Means in Planning (Edward C. Banfield, International Social Science Journal Vol. XI, No.3, 1959)
    -VIDEO LECTURE: The City and the Revolutionary Tradition (Edward C. Banfield, April 11, 1974, AEI’s Bicentennial Distinguished Lecture Series at the Franklin Hall of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
    -ETEXTS: Edward C. Banfield, An Online Resource
    -OBIT: Edward C. Banfield (NY Times, 10/08/99)
    -TRIBUTE: Ed Banfield: a giant for our times (Thomas Sowell — Oct 16th, 1999)
    -TRIBUTE: Memorial Minutes: Edward C. Banfield: Faculty of Arts and Sciences (Harvard Gazette, 1/18/01)
    -TRIBUTE: Remarks at Farewell to E.C. Banfield on Departure from Chicago” (Leo Strauss, 1959)
    -TRIBUTE: Edward C. Banfield: An Appreciation (Charles R. Kesler, ed., Claremont, CA: Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World, 2002)
    -VIDEO LECTURE: Edward Banfield: His sociological insights are a significant forerunner of current results from behavioral economics. (INSTRUCTOR: Tyler Cowen, George Mason University, Marginal Revolution University)
    -PODCAST: Christopher DeMuth on Edward Banfield: DeMuth and Kristol discuss the profound writings and teaching of the late Harvard Government professor. (Converstions with Kristol, March 19, 2014)
    -VIDEO PANEL: Democracy and the Constitution: Panel members responded to the question, "Is the Constitution in spirit designed to protect the wealthy masses against the poor?" Topics included majority rule, democracy, electoral college, and plurality. (C-SPAN, NOVEMBER 30, 1987)
    -ESSAY: Edward Banfield on the Promise of Politics and the Limits of Federalism (Kimberly Hendrickson, Autumn, 2004, Publius: Conservative Perspectives on American Federalism)
    -ESSAY: Return to ‘The Unheavenly City’ (Craig Trainor, May 17, 2020, Quillette)
    -TRIBUTE: The Independent Mind of Edward Banfield (James Q. Wilson, January 1, 2003, Edward C. Banfield: An Appreciation)
    -TRIBUTE: Edward C. Banfield (Terry Nichols Clark, 02 September 2013 , Political Science & Politics)
    -ESSAY: Rethinking Horizon Theory: Culture vs. Nature (B. Jeffrey Reno, 07 Aug 2010, Perspectives on Political Science)
    -ESSAY: Banfield’s “Heresy”: Last fall, just before Thanksgiving, Professor Edward Banfield resigned from Harvard University. (T. R. Marmor, July 1972, Commentary)
    -ESSAY: Edward Banfield Revisited (Daniel DiSalvo, Summer 2017, National Affairs)
    -ARTICLE: Banfield's Back (Jim Crumer, August 1, 1975, Harvard Crimson)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: Moral Sense and Social Science: Reading James Q. Wilson (John J. DiIulio, Jr., Claremont Review of Books)
    -ESSAY: A Nearly Forgotten Classic Study in Public Administration: Edward C. Banfield's Government Project (Kevin R. Kosar, 24 August 2009, Public Administration Review)
    -SYMPOSIUM: Banfield’sUnheavenly City: A symposium and response (Duane Lockard, Russell D. Murphy, Arthur Naftalin & Edward C. Banfield, 1971, Trans-action)
    -EXCERPT: from Triumph of the City: A new book describes how living and working in an urban expanse encourages the best humanity has to offer. (Edward Glaeser, August 17, 2011, Scientific American)
    -ESSAY: Loose Cigarettes Today, Civil Unrest Tomorrow: The racist, classist origins of broken windows policing. (JUSTIN PETERS, DEC 05, 2014, Slate)

In his 1970 book The Unheavenly City and a revised edition titled The Unheavenly City Revisited, Banfield addressed the era’s so-called urban crisis: high crime rates, riots, white flight. Liberalism was to blame, Banfield argued—or, at the very least, liberal policies would never help fix the crisis. The Great Society initiatives of the Johnson era had just served to widen class divisions and to encourage members of the lower classes to blame others for their plight, thus fostering feelings of resentment and entitlement.

Banfield argued that class divisions were based less on finances than on one’s life outlook and capacity for long-range thought. Members of the upper class were future-oriented, and, thus, able to postpone short-term pleasures for longer-term rewards. Members of the lower classes—urban blacks, in large part—lived from moment to moment, and acted out of a desire for instant gratification. They were also unambitious, “radically improvident,” antisocial, and prone to mental illness. Their problems were a matter of pathology, not racial prejudice (which Banfield argued was on the wane).

“The implication that lower-class culture is pathological seems fully warranted,” said Banfield. Thus, he argued, rather than waste time and public money implementing policies based on the false notion that all men were created equal, better to just face facts and acknowledge the natural divisions that exist. Members of the lower classes should leave school in ninth grade, to get a jump on a lifetime of manual labor. The minimum wage should be repealed to encourage employers to create more jobs for “low-value labor.” The state should give “intensive birth-control guidance to the incompetent poor.” And the police should feel free to crack down on young lower-class men.

Like many people, Banfield believed the urban unrest of the late 1960s had been stoked by matters of civil rights. But Banfield believed the problem was that the lower classes had too many of them. Criminal behavior was human nature—or, rather, in the nature of a specific subset of lower-class humans. “So long as there are large concentrations of boys and young men of the lower classes on the streets, rampages and forays are to be expected,” Banfield wrote. The clear solution was to remove these lower-class youths from the streets posthaste.

“There are individuals whose propensity to crime is so high that no set of incentives that it is feasible to offer to the whole population would influence their behavior,” Banfield wrote. The most effective way to prevent violent crime in cities, Banfield theorized, would therefore be to pre-emptively abridge the freedom of the “mostly young, lower-class males” who were likely to commit crimes in the future. What’s that? You say that “abridging the freedom of persons who have not committed crimes is incompatible with the principles of free society”? Well, said Banfield, “so, also, is the presence in free society of persons who, if their freedom is not abridged, would use it to inflict serious injuries on others.”

    -ESSAY: Broken Windows: The police and neighborhood safety (GEORGE L. KELLING & JAMES Q. WILSON, MARCH 1982, The Atlantic)
    -ESSAY: Edward Banfield on the Promise of Politics and the Limits of Federalism (Kimberly Hendrickson, Fall 2004, Publius: The Journal of Federalism)
    -ESSAY: The art of limited government (Arthur C. Brooks, March 26, 2013, AEI)
    -ESSAY: The Problem of the Cities (Mark Pulliam, MAY 17, 2016, Law & Liberty)
    -ARCHIVES: edward banfield (AEI)
    -REVIEW: of The Unheavenly City Revisted by Edward C. Banfield (Christopher DeMuth, The Alternative)
    -REVIEW: of The Unheavenly City: The Nature and Future of Our Urban Crises by Edward C. Banfield (David E. Vanderburg, Interfaces)
    -REVIEW: of The Unheavenly City (Edward Glaeser, NY Sun)
    -REVIEW: of The Unheavenly City (Duhl, L. J., & Blum, S. R., American Journal of Orthopsychiatr)
    -REVIEW: of The Unheavenly City (Julian H. Levi, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine)
    -REVIEW: of The Unheavenly City Revisited (Joel Lieske, American Journal of Sociology)
    -REVIEW: of The Unheavenly City (Charles D. Aring, MD, Arch Intern Med)
    -REVIEW: of The Unheavenly City (Richard Sennett, NY Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of The Unheavenly City (Robert Hassenger, Sociology of Religion)
    -REVIEW: of The Unheavenly City (Martin Plax, Modern Age)
    -REVIEW: of The Unheavenly City (Herzig, Sidney J.Theory and Decision)
    -ESSAY: Unintended Consequences (Rob Norton, EconLibrary)
    -REVIEW: of City Politics. By EDWARD C. BANFIELD AND JAMES Q. WILSON (Stephen L. Wasby, Political Research Quarterly)