American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto

Sudhir Alladi VENKATESH, Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh

Harvard University Press, Jun 30, 2009 - Social Science - 360 pages

High-rise public housing developments were signature features of the post-World War II city. A hopeful experiment in providing temporary, inexpensive housing for all Americans, the "projects" soon became synonymous with the black urban poor, with isolation and overcrowding, with drugs, gang violence, and neglect. As the wrecking ball brings down some of these concrete monoliths, Sudhir Venkatesh seeks to reexamine public housing from the inside out, and to salvage its troubled legacy.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• 1 A Place to Call Home: 13
• 2 Doing the Hustle: 65
• 3 Whats It Like to Be in Hell?: 110
• 4 Tenants Face Off with the Gang: 153
• 5 StreetGang Diplomacy: 191
• 6 The Beginning of the End of a Modern Ghetto: 238
• Authors Note: 281
• Notes: 289
• Acknowledgments: 319
• Index: 321

About the author

Sudhir Venkatesh is William B. Ransford Professor of Sociology at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is a researcher and writer on urban neighborhoods in the United States (New York, Chicago) and Paris, France. He is also a documentary film-maker. His most recent book is Gang Leader for a Day. In 2006 he also published Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor about illegal economies in Chicago. Off the Books received a Best Book Award from Slate.Com (2006) as well as the C. Wright Mills Award (2007). His first book, American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto (2000) explored life in Chicago public housing. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. He was a Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows, Harvard University from 1996-1999. He is currently Director of the Center for Urban Research and Policy, and Director of the Charles H. Revson Fellowship Program, both at Columbia University.

Bibliographic information

• Title: American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto
• Authors: Sudhir Alladi VENKATESH, Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh
• Edition: revised
• Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2009
• ISBN: 0674044657, 9780674044654
• Length: 360 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Sociology / Urban