Description: High-rise public housing was a signature of the post-World War II city. A hopeful experiment in providing temporary, inexpensive homes for all Americans, the "projects" soon became synonymous with the black urban poor, isolation and overcrowding, drugs, gang violence, and neglect. Here, Venkatesh seeks to salvage public housing's troubled legacy.
Brief description: Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh is William B. Ransford Professor of Sociology at Columbia University.
Review Quotes: A fascinating and rigorous explanation of a how a model of urban subsidized housing, which succeeded for 20 years, declined into disastrous conditions for its inhabitants...[American Project] is an important contribution to understanding urban poverty and will stand with classic work by Carol Stack and William Julius Wilson (who wrote the foreword). Highly recommended.--Paula R. Dempsey "Library Journal"