At Home in the City - by Stacy Torres

About the Book

"To understand elders' experiences of aging in place, sociologist Stacy Torres spent five years with longtime New York City residents as they coped with health setbacks, depression, gentrification, financial struggles, the accumulated losses of neighbors, friends, and family, and other everyday challenges. The sensitive portrait Torres paints in At Home in the City moves us beyond stereotypes of older people as either rich and pampered or downtrodden and frail to capture the multilayered complexity of late life. These pages chronicle how a nondescript bakery in Manhattan served as a public living room, providing company to ease loneliness and a sympathetic ear to witness the monumental and mundane struggles of late life. Through years of careful observation, Torres peels away the layers of this oft-neglected social world and explores the constellation of relationships and experiences that Western culture often renders invisible or frames as a problem. At Home in the City strikes a realistic balance as it highlights how people find support, flex their resilience, and assert their importance in their communities in old age"--

Book Synopsis

Uncovers how people aged 60 and older struggle, survive, and thrive in twenty-first-century urban America.

To understand elders' experiences of aging in place, sociologist Stacy Torres spent five years with longtime New York City residents as they coped with health setbacks, depression, gentrification, financial struggles, the accumulated losses of neighbors, friends, and family, and other everyday challenges. The sensitive portrait Torres paints in At Home in the City moves us beyond stereotypes of older people as either rich and pampered or downtrodden and frail to capture the multilayered complexity of late life.

These pages chronicle how a nondescript bakery in Manhattan served as a public living room, providing company to ease loneliness and a sympathetic ear to witness the monumental and mundane struggles of late life. Through years of careful observation, Torres peels away the layers of this oft-neglected social world and explores the constellation of relationships and experiences that Western culture often renders invisible or frames as a problem. At Home in the City strikes a realistic balance as it highlights how people find support, flex their resilience, and assert their importance in their communities in old age.

From the Back Cover

"An instant classic. The best ethnography of the elderly since Barbara Myerhoff's 1978 classic Number Our Days."--Mitchell Duneier, Princeton University

"A deeply affecting portrait of Americans who are aging in place, forging connections and finding meaning as the world around them churns. Written in the spirit of Barbara Myerhoff's Number Our Days and Arlie Hochschild's The Unexpected Community, At Home in the City is elegant, incisive, and impossible to forget."--Eric Klinenberg, author of 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed

"This fascinating book explores the social relationships and daily lives of a small group of older adults in New York City who have witnessed tremendous changes in their neighborhoods. At Home in the City expertly weaves together data, theory, and fresh ethnographic work to show how older adults living in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods navigate the challenges of aging. Stacy Torres is a rare academic who combines sophisticated sociological analysis with a lively and down-to-earth writing style. Her affection and respect for her subjects also jumps off the page, which makes At Home in the City a very satisfying read."--Deborah Carr, author of Aging in America

"At Home in the City provides a rich and timely portrait of how elderly residents age in place in a gentrifying area of New York City. The topic is relevant and the data is superb. Torres expertly shows the importance of 'third places' as places to gather, build relationships, and receive support."--David Trouille, author of Fútbol in the Park: Immigrants, Soccer, and the Creation of Social Ties

Review Quotes

"Torres's descriptions are rich, warm, and respectful, and allow readers to recognize that elders' neighborhood relationships consist of elastic ties rather than either weak or strong ties--terms commonly used to examine relationship networks."-- "CHOICE"

"This is a trailblazing study."-- "Journal of the American Planning Association"

"Planning helps, but aging has a way of knocking the elderly off course, sending them into hospitals and ending their lives before they're ready to exit this world. At Home in the City offers practical suggestions about aging and reminds readers that old age like youth is a 'social construction.'"-- "CounterPunch"

About the Author

Stacy Torres is Assistant Professor of Sociology in the School of Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco. A proud first-generation college graduate, she grew up in New York City.