Description

Robert Neuwirth is the author of two books on alternative social and economic structures „ Stealth of Nations, an up-close investigation of the value of street markets and underground trade, and Shadow Cities, which looks at squatter communities as normal urban neighborhoods.
Neuwirth gained the experience and insight necessary to write these two books by spending more than four years living in shantytowns throughout the world. He has worked with street vendors and gray marketers to personally examine the worldÍs informal economy, an economy that accounts for a staggering 1.8 billion jobs.

Neuwirth believes that a goal of the 21st century should not be to end squatter cities or shut down gray markets but rather to engage and empower those who live and work in them