American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto

by Sudhir Venkatesh, William Julius Wilson (Foreword)

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. Based on nearly a decade of fieldwork in Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes, American Project is the first comprehensive story of daily life in an American public housing complex.

Venkatesh draws on his relationships with tenants, gang members, police officers, and local organizations to offer an intimate portrait of an inner-city community that journalists and the public have only viewed from a distance. Challenging the conventional notion of public housing as a failure, this startling book re-creates tenants' thirty-year effort to build a safe and secure neighborhood: their political battles for services from an indifferent city bureaucracy, their daily confrontation with entrenched poverty, their painful decisions about whether to work with or against the street gangs whose drug dealing both sustained and imperiled their lives.

American Project explores the fundamental question of what makes a community viable. In his chronicle of tenants' political and personal struggles to create a decent place to live, Venkatesh brings us to the heart of the matter.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, History, Urban Studies, Politics, Anthropology, Race

226 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh is William B. Ransford Professor of Sociology, and the Committee on Global Thought, at Columbia University in the City of New York.

His most recent book is Gang Leader for a Day (Penguin Press), which received a Best Book award from The Economist, and is currently being translated into Chinese, Korean, Japanese, German, Italian, Polish, French and Portuguese. His previous work, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor (Harvard University Press, 2006) about illegal economies in Chicago, 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.

Venkatesh’ editorial writings have appeared in The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Post. He writes for Slate.com, and his stories have appeared in This American Life, WIRED, and on National Public Radio. His next book, under contract with Penguin Press, will focus on the role of black market economies—from sex work and drug trafficking to day care and entertainment—in the revitalization of New York since 1999.

Venkatesh is completing an ethnographic study of policing in the Department of Justice, where he served as a Senior Research Advisor from 2010-2011.

Venkatesh’s first documentary film, Dislocation, followed families as they relocated from condemned public housing developments. The documentary aired on PBS in 2005. He directed and produced a three-part award winning documentary on the history of public housing for public radio. And, he recently completed At the Top of My Voice, a documentary film on a scholar and artist who return to the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia to promote democracy and safeguard human rights.

Venkatesh 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, and an NSF CAREER award recipient in 2000. He holds a visiting appointment in Columbia University’s Law School and he is a voting member of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies.

Reviews

[モーリー · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like how it's rated fairly low on Amazon because the reviewers' attitudes can be summed up this way: "I hate poor people, so I hate this book too."

The major themes are "he doesn't demonize single mothers enough" and "stop portraying victims as victims! they should get over it!"

Based on the preview I got from these reviewers, I was looking forward to reading this book. Given that many of my friends growing up lived in not projects, but subsidized housing and low-income neighborhoods, I feel like these are voices that need desperately to be heard and so often are not.

This book is excellent if enraging.

[John Gurney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Venkatesh's field ethnographic study of Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes is interesting, but suffers from plodding academic prose. The Taylor Homes were America's largest housing project, built in post-modern, plain high-rises. This study tries to understand why the Taylor Homes failed, they famously were torn down in the 1990's.

The architecture and spatial dimensions of the projects were a major problem. Racism forced Chicago's black residents into a small "Black Belt" of dilapidated housing that still was very expensive because supply was so limited. Post-WWII optimism for large government initiatives fed the pubic housing movement which built towers on top of a demolished neighborhood. Taylor's setting, pushed by the white power structure, was isolated by rail lines and the 8-lane Dan Ryan Expressway, and were built partly as a buffer against black encroachment on Mayor Richard M. Daley's home neighborhood of Bridgeport to the west.

The Taylor Homes were towers surrounded by vast open spaces of parking lots and some public use areas. Unfortunate factors colluded to turn Robert Taylor into drab, dangerous, and hopeless places. The residents became poorer after 1965, and increasingly unemployed (hitting 90% by the early 1990's). The inept, corrupt Chicago Housing Authority was unable or unwilling to maintain the facilities. Local gangs became professionalized and focused on large-scale lucrative drug selling all around the projects, culminating in crack and heroin in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The architecture wasn't well suited to large numbers of poor residents, especially when many were armed. Children fell to their deaths. An insufficient number of elevators were built and children played with them, breaking them. Residents had to use dimly lit stairwells that were often used by residents engaged in illicit activities. The large towers, surrounded by open space and parking lots remind the reader of a castle; the police and other providers, even local service agencies, became terrified of approaching the projects because snipers could- and did- shoot as they approached. The police also were ineffective because gangs or others engaging in crime could see the police approaching from far away and hide the contraband.

This book details the natural entrepreneurialism of the residents. Because most were on income-dependent public aid, they needed to "hussle" in shadows of the economy. Gambling, drug selling, and a bordello thrived within Robert Taylor, as did more legitimate home-based businesses like meal preparation sold to others and large auto repair businesses occurred in parking lots. Sadly, residents had to pay bribes to local area resident council members ("LAC"), police, CHA guards, and gangs just to maintain their meager off-the-books work. In fact, the Chicago tradition of bribery sadly shows through over and over as little seemed to happen without someone greasing someone else. The residents had talents underutilized by the local economy and many tried to create a functioning local community.

The Black Kings gang is prominent in the book. Residents struggled with whether to accomodate the gang or work against it. Given the lack of police resources, the spatial dimensions of Robert Taylor, the lack of alternative employment options, and the strong demand for the drugs the BK's sold, the gang was there to stay.

The book ends shortly before the hulking Robert Taylor Homes were demolished and the residents were dispersed to Section 8 rent subsidization in the private market.

[Alger Smythe-Hopkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book marks the high point of Venkatesh's scholarship so far. It is also, unfortunately, his first effort.

This volume is a readable description of a segment of American society that exists in parallel to the world most of us see, but that only comes to the surface in short glimpses from car windows and the violent highlights of the evening's news.
What is most useful and engaging about this book is that Venkatesh presents the residents of the Robert Taylor Homes as people, and manages to hold onto their individual lives while tying their unique experiences to larger patterns of change and neglect. This is one of the few studies of poverty that makes connections between how policy appears on the ground to the people impacted by it and how they cope. The residents of the Robert Taylor Homes are clever and creative agents that find realistic and achievable survival strategies in an environment that is chaotic at its best, and organized and actively hostile at its worst.
Those of us who know poverty recognize some of the people in Venkatesh's safari through the wilds of public housing, and that is also the book's weakest points. For all of Venkatesh's sympathy and simpatico brio, he never really grasps the potential of the people he meets. His admiration of the robust black and grey market economies in the Robert Taylor Homes never really becomes an appreciation of the people running those economies. The people he meets have personalities (sometimes, I suspect composite) and intelligence in conversations describing how decisions made far from their homes have affected their lives. Somehow, these encounters did little to change Venkatesh's stereotypical view of life in the projects.
The central flaw of the book is that Venkatesh never challenges the Ghetto trope of the title beyond descriptions of a golden age of the Homes soon after they were built. So many times during an interview Venkatesh edges up to stating that the public housing community is a kind of qualified success that overcomes the casual violence in the halls and the sustained neglect of the city administrators, only to fall back to conventional third person perspectives from on high that pathologizes the situation.
My final judgement on this book emerged as Venkatesh continued to publish on his experiences in the Taylor Homes (see: Freakonomics, Gang Leader for a Day), and came to realize that the real reason American Project is such a success as a book is that Venkatesh hadn't yet figured out that these people were challenging his preferred conclusions with their own words. In more recent publications Venkatesh has kind of forgotten that he/himself is not the reason we are reading. The triumph of this book is that, just this once, the forgotten residents of Robert Taylor Homes got the chance to speak clearly through someone who could get others to listen.

[Jason Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of how good intentions to change the system have been thwarted. The Black community in Chicago has had great ideas and leaders yet every step forward is met with unfair laws and changes to prevent them from thriving. It is a fascinating history that leaves me disappointed and disgusted with lawmakers that try to promise good things while they are simultaneously making laws that will make the black community more dependent on and trapped by the government.
Everyone should read it and think about what decisions have really set up the structures we live in.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

An comprehensive but dry history of the people and organizations that shaped life in Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes. More a scholarly report than an engaging read, this is Venkatesh being a social scientist instead of a compelling writer.

[Alli Kamal · Rating 3 out of 5]

The content of this book was interesting and well researched, however the format and some of the repetitiveness made for a slow paced read.

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

We'll chalk this one up to being a "product of its time"

[Atika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written with empathy and insightful, though the writing is not very gripping.

[Em (Makenna) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of this book was really interesting and I appreciated all the background information. However the second part was really slow and not as engaging

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the third book I've read over the past few months on the American ghetto and perhaps my rating - probably 2.5 stars - partially reflects some fatigue with the material. American Project isn't a terrible book but it's not amazing either. In American Project, Venkatesh chronicles the lives of the tenants of Chicago's infamous Robert Taylor Homes in the 1990s and their struggle with gang activity in the housing project. Like Wacquant, Venkatesh does give a sense of the broader systemic issues that led to the failure of this social engineering experiment - the entrenched racism and patronage that led to blacks being isolated in the ghetto (Robert Taylor Homes was situated in the heart of the ghetto); the indifference and helplessness of government agencies such as the Chicago Housing Authority and the police; and the withdrawal of established community organisations from the neighbourhood, on the grounds that they did not want to get involved in the "politics" between tenants and the Black Knights gang over the latter's drug dealing activities. Unlike Wacquant, whose Urban Outcasts comes across very much as being written by the aloof academic from his lofty perch, observing his research subjects scurrying around below, Venkatesh does give a sense of getting down to the ground. The voice of Robert Taylor residents does come through prominently in the narrative and gives the reader a better sense of some of the challenges they faced living in the project.

One of the more interesting sections of the book for me was when Venkatesh talked about some of the backgrounds of the middle-tier gang leaders - one was a college graduate and had worked in a white collar job; another had received a scholarship to go to college. These profiles do not conform to the stereotype of gang members; these boys/men chose the gang route because it was a route that offered them the prospect of mobility, power, "respect" and fun, as opposed to the security (and drudgery) of a nine to five job taking orders from some white person. In that respect, the motivations of these men seemed similar to that of the boys living in the favela in Donna Goldstein's Laughter Out of Place, who choose to join a gang instead of getting a respectable job. There's a high chance of dying, but there's also a chance of raising themselves out of abject poverty, which menial labour does not offer.

My main gripe is that the book isn't as tightly written as it could have been. Clocking in at 287 pages, the book isn't a very long one. But some parts of it felt tedious as I felt Venkatesh was belabouring certain points, e.g. the haplessness and isolation of Robert Taylor as traditional forms of support e.g. community organisations refused to engage with the community; or the dilemma the Local Advisory Council faced as to whether to work with the Black Knights, or treat them as the enemy to be flushed out somehow. I understand the need to emphasise certain key points but there's a fine line between emphasizing and belabouring a point.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important work of ethnography, American Project is both a history of how and why the Robert Taylor Homes came to be, how the choices made from the very beginning doomed the viability of the program, and is also the social history of some of those who lived there. The government agencies that built the projects were unwilling, from the beginning, to provide adequate maintenance. Ineffective policing strategies pitted residents against those who were to have provided their security. Some families were unwilling to curtail other family members' participation in criminal enterprises. Venkatesh goes to great lengths to elaborate how residents, in spite of the hardships, built social networking strategies to cope with the ever-growing issues that blighted the Robert Taylor homes.

I know that Sudhir had to, as mandated by his department's policy, change both personal names and place names. Thus, the streets and service organizations are renamed, the buildings renumbered, and of course there's never been a "Black Kings" or "Sharks" gang in Chicago. For a local, this is extremely distracting; I was always trying to map these names to their real world counterparts.

More importantly, it reduces the utility of the book as a work of history. I can't use American Project to discuss historical events in any detail because the details themselves have been shifted around. It's not clear whether Sudhir has rearranged the physical geography of the buildings or just renumbered them. I can't go back and read a contemporaneous Chicago Tribune article, for example, and explicitly link its content to events (or even organizations) with any certainty.

But this is a relatively minor quibble. While I'd have preferred more (and lengthier) extracts from his interviews with those who lived in the homes, it's an important range of voices that have been ignored for too long to which he gives a place in the record.

Recommended as fine ethnography, but only the first half is adequate as history. The half century long, failed experiment with public housing in Chicago still awaits its definitive chronicle.

[Bob Beemsterboer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Similar to the Code of the Street, Sudhir Venkatesh’s, “American Project,” is an in the field ethnographic study of the Robert Taylor public housing projects in Chicago. Over a period of ten long years, Venkatesh studied the community, the gangs, violence, and the everyday struggles of those living within. Going further than just an outsider looking in, Venkatesh went so far as to develop relationships with almost everyone inside, making himself a member of the community. Through his observations, he learns that police allow gangs to operate freely on the premises which led to the increasing spread of crime and violence. Political outcries from tenants trying to make better lives for themselves are seldom heard and never acted upon. Venkatesh intended his writings to reveal that good people live in the projects and want to relieve the negative social stigma they are associated with.

[Lee Gargagliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a beautiful account of life in the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago, the largest housing project (since torn down) in the United States. Too often housing projects are seen as terrible because of either negligent welfare queens and their dysfunctional families or because of hapless poor people treaded on by the government and a racist society. Venkatesh avoids both of these pitfalls by looking at Robert Taylor through the eyes of its inhabitants and evaluating its successes and failures historically. This book is a wonderful, humanizing account of poor Black people's struggle to improve their lives against the incredible obstacles they face from all directions.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everytime I rode the Red Line from Hyde Park during my undergraduate years, there would be one fewer building of the Robert Taylor projects. It was always amazing to me that people lived in these buildings, and that while its inhabitants suffered greatly at the hands of societal indifference, they still associated with Robert Taylor Homes some good memories.

The Venkatesh gets buried in the CHA/gang politics at times. Nevertheless fascinating.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful book that shows the reasons behind why Robert Taylor public housing was a failure - but, also shows the efforts taken by the residents to NOT make this happen. Very interesting look into the way that our society approaches public housing. Immediate follow-up: Sudhir Venkatesh book on "Gang Leader for a Day" - which talks about his friendship with a gang leader (out of his experience at Robert Taylor) over the last 10 years.

[Colette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I just finished Ghettoside and this book does not even touch Jane Leovy's book. I would recommend that and the Pruitt Igoe documentary if you have an interest in large scale housing projects. This books also feels more dated than it should, probably due to the gang chapters that seem to drag on. I kept waiting for some grand conclusions about the projects, but found none. I wanted this to be interesting, but it just wasn't.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is a bit stilted and grad student-ish, but the history and data conveyed are so complete and worthwhile. This is the serious scholarly work which complements Venkatesh's memoir "Gang Leader for a Day." I almost have to recommend them together- I feel like I really got the whole picture reading them back-to-back.

[Vasil Kolev · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is mostly the history of the Robert Taylor complex in Chicago, from its creation to its end. It focuses a lot on the dynamics in the relations between the Chicago Housing Authority, the police, the tenants and the gangs, the different conflicts and events and the politics involved.

The language makes the book a bit hard to read.

[Jeramey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting look into the culture of the Robert Taylor Homes.

I struggled with reading the book at times because the chapters just flow one into the other. It also felt at times like I was reading the same thing over and over again. I found Gang Leader for a Day a more enjoyable read, but perhaps less educational.

[JennyB · Rating 1 out of 5]

Finishing this one almost killed me. Way to take a topic and academicize the last gasping breath of interest out of it, Venkatesh. I don't know why I finished it, I really don't. Anyway, if you've any inclination to pick this up, rent The Wire instead. Same story, much more enjoyable way of taking it in.

[Elizabeth]

Here's hoping that it's better than Gang Leader for a Day, which was disappointing.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh! So that's how the projects started as a novel concept but ended up failing miserably. 90% funding cuts in the '80's didn't help any either...

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't expect to like this book and I certainly have some critiques of Venkatesh, but overall it was easy to read and I learned things.

[Leksi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting subject, but I don't like the way Venkatesh writes. He's purely academic.
Come on, liven it up a little.

[Roger]

See other comments on Venkatesh / same as above

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not finished yet, but I'd go so far as to suggest you put down what you're currently reading and pick this up. This is painful to read, in parts, but one-of-a-kind insightful.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am really interested in the subject of this book and I got the feeling I would like the guy who wrote it if I met him…but for some reason I got really bored and stopped reading.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting history/study of the Robert Taylor Homes apartments in South-side Chicago.

[Jeff Hottinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this and then watched the first season of The Wire. Same exact thing. Both excellent views into a reality we'd all probably rather ignore.

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book that looks at the development of Chicago high-rise housing projects, the goals of the planners and what actually happened. A real eye-opening read!