Public housing was designed to liberate the city and streets of vagrants and paupers; however, in spite of strong support and investment, in practice it did not achieve that feat. The article The Beginning of the End of a Modern Ghetto by Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh discusses the racial and class stereotypes that obscured the way Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes functioned. When it opened in November 1962, Robert Taylor Homes, were twenty-eight sixteen-story buildings containing 4,300 units on Chicago's
Sudhir goes back to his studio apartment, wondering whether he should continue with his normal graduate routine that day, of classes and department business. But after showering, he buys beer and goes back to the same project. He finds JT and says that, if JT says Sudhir should observe people and their daily lives, then he, Sudhir, is happy to do it. JT says that Sudhir is courageous for returning, even if JT is still slightly confused by his persistent desire to research the community. They talk
In the story of how “A Rouge Sociologist Takes to the Streets”, Sudhir Venkatesh finds himself in the projects of Chicago documenting his first hand experiences of his journey on how he is introduced to the black culture. Sudhir, a first year college student in the University of Chicago, decides to participate in a research project regarding “how young blacks were affected by specific neighborhood factors”, when he realizes how ineffective these questionnaires are, he decides to proceed in unconventional
Sudhir Venkatesh's Gang Leader for a Day provides readers with an in depth understanding of life for the poverty stricken in 1980s Chicago, Illinois. More specifically, Venkatesh's research focuses on African-Americans living in the Robert Taylor public housing units, which were notorious for gang activity and general onslaught of crime. Despite the clear picture Venkatesh is able to exhibit by throwing himself into this alien world, the information he garnered was not acquired without fault. Since
Gang Leader for a Day written by Sudhir Venkatesh consisted of Sudhir himself studying, observing and partaking in a study for his dissertation on the South Side of Chicago with underprivileged African Americans who are gang affiliated. The methodological and ethical issues that were found in his book reflect potential strengths and weaknesses of his qualitative research. Venkatesh brought to light the dangers and awareness of being associated with the Black Kings gang, there were situations that
I have decided to talk about Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day, chapter 4. This chapter spoke out the most to me in this book. So far in the last three chapters, we have learned that how Sudhir is a graduate student doing a research on the daily lives of poor black lives in Chicago. In this chapter we see Sudhir interacting with the group leader of the gang Black Kings in Robert Taylor. At first JT the group leader or the boss comes off very strong on Sudhir, laughing on his face about the
The book “Freakonomics” by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner is a dissection of anecdotes. The authors intensely dismantle ideas that are social norms, using economic and demographic data. The book has no central theme other than to “explore the hidden side of… everything.”pg.14 One chapter the subject will be on corruption in the sumo wrestling community, then another on how legalizing abortion lowers crime rates, then another on what effect parenting has on children. Chapter three explains why the
Sociology student Sudhir Venkatesh sets out on a journey within the Chicago housing projects with a quest of finding out how it feels to be black and poor. Sudhir was an Indian native from a middle class Californian family and he was unfamiliar with the black culture within Chicago. In his book Gang Leader for a Day, he tells of his sociology research within one of the roughest housing projects in Chicago. Sudhir starts his research by talking to a few elderly gentlemen he played chess with at the
Gang Leader for a Day: A Rouge Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh is the ideologies rooted in the African American community. The ideal facts cannot be denied here. The idea of being black and poor is not a simple answer of, very bad, somewhat bad, neither, somewhat good or very good. Being black and poor is a lifestyle. Being black and poor is a community. This book will give you understanding how structural racism among blacks is installed throughout history. The system is created
A Tale of Two Cities Chicago Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, author of Off the Books shed light on the “underground economy”, a survival system that still puzzles the greater public today. Through an extensive ethnography of Maquis Park, a poor black neighborhood on Chicago’s southside, Venkatesh offers some interesting second thoughts about the underground economy, that will transform people’s misconception about it. The underground economy can be defined as the licit and illicit activities that are unrecorded
The proposed legalization of prostitution is not a new debate, nor is it a subject that has been overlooked in research. The term prostitution is best defined as any situation in which one person pays another for sexual gratification (Greenberg, Bruess, & Oswalt, 2014). Though there are many types of sex workers such as strippers, bar girls, and phone sex operators, this argument will focus solely on those in the business of trading physical sex for money or bartering. Prostitution is already legal
Why Female Youths Join Gangs Female youths join street gangs on the basis of gender conflict, lack of family support and violence in their lives. Through adolescence young females have a much harder time than young males dealing with family, sexuality and the harsh reality of living in the urban ghetto. Young females who must endure these facets of life have little opportunity to succeed. Consequently, these young women turn to a replacement family, a place where they feel they are needed