Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Lisa Servon, author of the book The Unbanking of America: How The New Middle Class Survives, just published last week by Houghton Mifflin.

Lisa has been Professor of Management and Urban Policy at The New School. She holds degrees from Bryn Mawr, Penn, right down the road and a PhD from UC Berkley in Urban Planning. And is currently involved in City and Regional Planning at Penn. She wrote Bridging the Digital Divide.


Before I begin a summary of this great book, let me start off as I now am perforce required to do since the election when I interview an erudite and well reasoning author of a non-fiction book dealing with our economy, public policy or other important social issue.


I have to tell you that I wake up every morning feeling fine. Then I sit up and say, “Donald J. Trump is President of The United States of America. My day is then ruined and I feel as if I am living in an episode of South Park.

SO it is always somewhat disarming to talk to someone logical and articulate because those are qualities that no longer seem to exist in our government just as the word inappropriate has no more meaning. Ok enough of that.

The Unbanking of America is a book that tells us a story. A story of how banking has changed in America. What it used to be and what it has now become.

Who has been disenfranchised and why and how new systems have come into place, some underground and shadowy, some mainstream that have taken the place of a checking account at Bank of America or that bastion of dishonesty, Wells Fargo.

Lisa double-checks her own perceptions by going out into the workforce and verifying some assumptions and surprising herself by undermining her previous assumptions in some situations.

She goes to work at RiteCheck, a check cashing establishment in the Bronx and Check Center a payday lender in Oakland. These institutions considered predatory by people like me over the past years, turn out to be “not so bad” in many ways. When compared to alternatives.

In conclusion Lisa opens our eyes to the coping mechanisms that a good portion of our society must engage in in order to survive today’s economy.

Welcome Lisa and thanks for joining us today.