Rob > Recent Status Updates

Informative but irritating. The author fails to define hip in the chapter that purports to do so, and then plops it in every few pages like an imprecise moral. On 139: "Though the paradox is always the same, at any instant hip requires that its terms be written anew." On 134: "Jazz was becoming... a taste for an elite minority. Cool told the story of this transition. Hip would have to move elsewhere as well."

I haven't read a social sciences page-turner like this in a while. Refreshingly balanced, though, of course, sad. Desmond is willing to show the faults of impoverished renters and the reasonableness and accommodations made by landlords. There is also a racial balance, as this is an issue affecting people of many backgrounds. You also see the negative effects of policies on individuals.