Search -
American Project : The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto
American Project The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto Author:Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh 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 th... more »e inside out, and to salvage its troubled legacy. "Venkatesh probes beyond the headlines about Robert Taylor Homes—the shootings, murders, accidental deaths, and police sweeps—and shows us how its residents used whatever resources were at hand to adjust to adverse circumstances. The brilliance of the author's approach is that he listens sympathetically to the people who lived and worked in this massive public housing project, yet he remains scrupulously objective." —Alexander von Hoffman, American Prospect "A natural history of urban disenfranchisement, [American Project] advances significantly our understanding of the social linkages between public housing and racism, and the way these forces have worked to the detriment of urban blacks. It is a distinctive contribution to the literature of race and poverty." —Elijah Anderson, author of Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City« less