Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community

Front Cover
University of Chicago Press, Nov 15, 1992 - Social Science - 276 pages
In a powerful, revealing portrait of city life, Anderson explores the dilemma of both blacks and whites, the underclass and the middle class, caught up in the new struggle not only for common ground—prime real estate in a racially changing neighborhood—but for shared moral community. Blacks and whites from a variety of backgrounds speak candidly about their lives, their differences, and their battle for viable communities.

"The sharpness of his observations and the simple clarity of his prose recommend his book far beyond an academic audience. Vivid, unflinching, finely observed, Streetwise is a powerful and intensely frightening picture of the inner city."—Tamar Jacoby, New York Times Book Review

"The book is without peer in the urban sociology literature. . . . A first-rate piece of social science, and a very good read."—Glenn C. Loury, Washington Times

About the author (1992)

Elijah Anderson is the Sterling Professor of Sociology and of African American Studies at Yale University. His past books include A Place on the Corner, Streetwise, published by the University of Chicago Press, as well as Code of the Street and The Cosmopolitan Canopy.

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