Robert Putnam grew up in Port Clinton, Ohio. Back then, in the 1950s, children from both sides of the tracks in his working-class town went to school together, played sports together, knew each other and watched out for each other.
Robert D. Putnam is famous for his best-selling book “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” which warned that Americans were withdrawing from each other and from civic life.
The university-wide Livable Lives Initiative investigates what social conditions and policy supports can make life with a low or moderate income stable, secure, satisfying, and successful.