- Hardcover: 410 pages
- Publisher: Harvard University Press (13 Oct 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0674023552
- ISBN-13: 978-0674023550
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 15 x 3.6 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 980,189 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor
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Product Description
Times Literary Supplement
'Contains vivid, almost novelistic descriptions of the dealing and hustling in Maquis Park. The description and the classification in this remarkable book are extraordinary
Product Description
In this revelatory book, Sudhir Venkatesh takes us into Maquis Park, a poor black neighbourhood on Chicago's Southside, to explore the desperate, dangerous and remarkable ways in which a community survives. We find there an entire world of unregulated, unreported, and untaxed work, a system of living off the books that is daily life in the ghetto. From women who clean houses and prepare lunches for the local hospital to small-scale entrepreneurs like the mechanic who works in an alley; from the preacher who provides mediation services to the salon owner who rents her store out for gambling parties; and from street vendors hawking socks and incense to the drug dealing and extortion of the local gang, we come to see how these activities form the backbone of the ghetto economy. What emerges are the innumerable ways that these men and women, immersed in their shadowy economic pursuits, are connected to and reliant upon one another. The underground economy, as Venkatesh's subtle storytelling reveals, functions as an intricate web, and in the strength of its strands lie the fates of many Maquis Park residents. The result is a dramatic narrative of individuals at work, and a rich portrait of a community. But while excavating the efforts of men and women to generate a basic livelihood for themselves and their families, "Off the Books" offers a devastating critique of the entrenched poverty that we so often ignore in America, and reveals how the underground economy is an inevitable response to the ghetto's appalling isolation from the rest of the country.
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First Sentence
Marlene Matteson was the person least likely to mourn the death of Johnnie "Big Cat" Williams, leader of the Maquis Park Kings, the local neighborhood gang. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Marlene Matteson was the person least likely to mourn the death of Johnnie "Big Cat" Williams, leader of the Maquis Park Kings, the local neighborhood gang. Read the first page
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26 reviews
85 of 91 people found the following review helpful
Way More Than Informative...
2 Oct 2006
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Some books are informative. And some books are eye-opening. This book is eye-opening. Read it and you will learn many fascinating things you never dreamed were going on....
...unless you already live in a highly urbanized/disadvantaged neighborhood.
The author is an enterprising young academic who is drawn to the firsthand study of life in such neighborhoods. Being of mixed race "gave me (the author) an indeterminate and unthreatening presence" by which he could spend months with the residents - enough time to understand life and the economy there with more thoroughness than perhaps ever before.
The underground economy in this corner of America is woven into every fabric of life. You learn first hand about enterprises running the gamut from the homeless fellow who does reliable auto repair in back alleys and side streets, to the (no surprise here) sex workers and drug sellers, to the stay at home mom that cooks meals for local residents, shopkeepers and even the police.
You learn how the local gang leader is not simply a lawless soul feared by all, but a broker of influence upon which even the most upstanding residents come to rely.
With so much disadvantage built into the neighborhood you come to understand how everyone learns to accept shady economic dealings out of the joint recognition of the need to survive. But when such dealings bring a larger than acceptable threat to the children and residents, then the gang leader is often brought in to broker a deal to return things to homeostasis.
As a white suburbanite here is what struck me the most. There is waaaaay more tolerance and acceptance among neighbors in the ghetto than there is in suburbia. There is waaaaay more neighbor involvement and mutual reliance in the ghetto than in suburbia. In fact, instead of the ongoing competition so often found in the suburbs, the ghetto is characterized by the opposite - genuine concern for and involvement with one's neighbors.
Is it a great place to live? Of course not. I mean, any world where you have to call on the gang leader to broker safety in the streets for kids must be a risky world.
But as the book will teach you, there is a richness, mutual acceptance, and mutual protection that would be envied in the safer suburbs. Not to mention a level of economic enterprise that outsiders - until now - had no idea existed.
As I said at the beginning, some books teach you additional things about something you already know. This book teaches you about something (you will admit by page 10) you almost certainly know nothing.
...unless you already live in a highly urbanized/disadvantaged neighborhood.
The author is an enterprising young academic who is drawn to the firsthand study of life in such neighborhoods. Being of mixed race "gave me (the author) an indeterminate and unthreatening presence" by which he could spend months with the residents - enough time to understand life and the economy there with more thoroughness than perhaps ever before.
The underground economy in this corner of America is woven into every fabric of life. You learn first hand about enterprises running the gamut from the homeless fellow who does reliable auto repair in back alleys and side streets, to the (no surprise here) sex workers and drug sellers, to the stay at home mom that cooks meals for local residents, shopkeepers and even the police.
You learn how the local gang leader is not simply a lawless soul feared by all, but a broker of influence upon which even the most upstanding residents come to rely.
With so much disadvantage built into the neighborhood you come to understand how everyone learns to accept shady economic dealings out of the joint recognition of the need to survive. But when such dealings bring a larger than acceptable threat to the children and residents, then the gang leader is often brought in to broker a deal to return things to homeostasis.
As a white suburbanite here is what struck me the most. There is waaaaay more tolerance and acceptance among neighbors in the ghetto than there is in suburbia. There is waaaaay more neighbor involvement and mutual reliance in the ghetto than in suburbia. In fact, instead of the ongoing competition so often found in the suburbs, the ghetto is characterized by the opposite - genuine concern for and involvement with one's neighbors.
Is it a great place to live? Of course not. I mean, any world where you have to call on the gang leader to broker safety in the streets for kids must be a risky world.
But as the book will teach you, there is a richness, mutual acceptance, and mutual protection that would be envied in the safer suburbs. Not to mention a level of economic enterprise that outsiders - until now - had no idea existed.
As I said at the beginning, some books teach you additional things about something you already know. This book teaches you about something (you will admit by page 10) you almost certainly know nothing.
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Could Become a Landmark Work in the Study of Cities...
13 Feb 2007
Format:Hardcover
40 years ago, Jane Jacobs influenced generations of planners and urban policy makers with her "Death and Life of Great American Cities," a sensitive and sensible portrait of how great cities work as social organisms. Jacobs turned 60 years of urban policy on its head and gave birth to a new way of thinking about cities and how to solve their problems: by celebrating and encouraging their social fabric, rather than dividing it with freeways and public housing projects. Since Jacobs' work, American cities have seen a great resurgance in their central cores. But today they are more divided than ever between rich and poor. While America's central cities are seeing more investment and interest than ever before, those same central cities are also home to deepening poverty and despair.
Sudhir Venkatesh has produced a startlingly honest portrayal of how this "other half" the American urban experience really works. While Jacobs saw density as the answer to the city's problems rather than the cause of them, Venkatesh examines what happens when the density of the city meets deep generational poverty. In a world where everyone is engaged in everyday survival, the "eyes and ears" that Jacobs celebrated as the ultimate contol over social behavior become, in Venkatesh's analysis, the mechnism of regulation of a vast underground, off the books economy. The neighborhoods Venkatesh studies are places that are ignored and forgotten by the larger society, places where resources are scarce and where the very definition of "right and wrong" is colored by the need to survive, to put food on the table, to make rent.
Venkatesh provides a refreshingly non-ideological study into how the urban poor really live. He avoids glamorizing the lives of underground, criminal actors, and avoids moralizing or grandstanding. Rather, he tells us the realities and consequences of the economic decisions of those residing in America's poor central cities. This book is a must-read for anyone who cares about the state of our cities. It reveals the hidden order beneath the apparent choas of the ghetto. By defining how the ghetto works, Venkatesh may well have started a much-needed conversation on how what we can do to make sure it works differently.
Sudhir Venkatesh has produced a startlingly honest portrayal of how this "other half" the American urban experience really works. While Jacobs saw density as the answer to the city's problems rather than the cause of them, Venkatesh examines what happens when the density of the city meets deep generational poverty. In a world where everyone is engaged in everyday survival, the "eyes and ears" that Jacobs celebrated as the ultimate contol over social behavior become, in Venkatesh's analysis, the mechnism of regulation of a vast underground, off the books economy. The neighborhoods Venkatesh studies are places that are ignored and forgotten by the larger society, places where resources are scarce and where the very definition of "right and wrong" is colored by the need to survive, to put food on the table, to make rent.
Venkatesh provides a refreshingly non-ideological study into how the urban poor really live. He avoids glamorizing the lives of underground, criminal actors, and avoids moralizing or grandstanding. Rather, he tells us the realities and consequences of the economic decisions of those residing in America's poor central cities. This book is a must-read for anyone who cares about the state of our cities. It reveals the hidden order beneath the apparent choas of the ghetto. By defining how the ghetto works, Venkatesh may well have started a much-needed conversation on how what we can do to make sure it works differently.
17 of 21 people found the following review helpful
The Author Needs to Prioritize
29 May 2007
Format:Hardcover
Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh has the potencial for a really good book here, but he mucks it up by switching back and forth between being an objective social scientist reporting his findings and a sympathetic visitor to the urban American slum. His digressions into obscure and arcane points of academic theory interrupt the narrative flow and make the book a tedious read at times.
With that minor quibble stated however, Off the Books is a very enlightening survey of the seemingly intractable problems facing the population of America's ghettos. I highly recommend it to the people who promote laissez-faire economic policies as a cure-all for urban social pathologies.
With that minor quibble stated however, Off the Books is a very enlightening survey of the seemingly intractable problems facing the population of America's ghettos. I highly recommend it to the people who promote laissez-faire economic policies as a cure-all for urban social pathologies.
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