Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea

This is an absolutely wonderful book on the ghetto or perhaps I should say “ghettos,” plural, for the monograph makes it plain that the term has been used in a wide variety of ways with differing referents over the years. The book is very different from what Duneier has done exceedingly well before -- this book is like an intellectual history of a concept rather than an ethnographic investigation of a world. But qualitatively and thought-wise, it is on a par with his previous works. The last chapter is an utter tour de force, reminding us that we need to be specific and particular when we refer to some place as a ghetto (and what is limiting when using the concept as well), lest we undermine our own understanding of the place and the experience of those within it. Duneier brings things home in that regard with an elegant delineation of what is distinctive about the black ghetto in the U.S., and what it would take in detail to do something ameliorative about it. I agree with others about the high quality of the writing as well.

This book resonated with me on so many levels: Black scholars defining/illuminating my childhood home (the ghetto); becoming aware that the ‘ghetto’ originated with the Jews centuries ago; while the Jewish ghetto was more one of group solidarity - people thriving within their culture - the African American (AA) ghetto was/is more like a prison/encampment with pretty much no opportunity to get out (e.g. generational); more information on restrictive covenants (who knew) and how they were demonically planned to keep Black folks in very small dense communities with hardly any services (the results of which still impact our communities today); how AA have not been thought of as humans (kinda knew but when you hear more proof…whoo) since forever; how the government, including colleges and powerful national outside organizations, were complicit (knew this too but again more proof) in systematically and diabolically upholding the draconian policies and unfair real estate planning practices.The author juxtaposes the Jewish ghetto where people ‘simultaneously suffered and flourished’ and were able to move far away from their ghetto and fellow Jews, with the AA ghetto and how they were unable to ‘break through restrictive covenants (in addition to red lining and the rest) to the borders of existing neighborhoods’; offering limited opportunities no matter how successful. “ … black settlement patterns were unnatural and based on white aspirations to racial purity. They did not resemble those of other ethnic and racial groups.”I especially appreciated how Duneier framed and enlightened ‘the ghetto’ term, as it relates to blacks, from mainly AA scholars’ perspectives. As he himself stated: “It’s little recognized that the term embodies some of the most brilliant work in the history of the social sciences, much of which was contributed by black scholars such as those presented in these pages.” As a social worker myself I smiled when I read about how the first scholar presented, Horace Clayton, actually did field-work (the right way) with over 200 interviewers (supervised by 20 graduate students) –in the Black neighborhood to learn about and get information on Black people!This book brilliantly elucidates these scholars’ views on the AA ghetto, based on research and the people who lived there as well as offering recommendations and opinions on the best way to better the ghetto or move people out of it. Although, over the years, there have been many views and opinions on how to support/help the inhabitants of the ghetto there’s obviously not a quick fix and we need to keep that in perspective. It took us centuries to get into this position it may take us that long to untangle it…. hope not though.Finally, really glad I was exposed to this author at a book reading in Baltimore at Sheppard Pratt Library. This quote reflects American ghetto sentiments best: “Above and beyond racism, this ability of the American people to compartmentalize, to live with moral dissonance, is the crucial underlying foundation of the forgotten ghetto.”

This is a book that people should want to read, with the drive to want the latest smart phone.It's one thing to read pages and say, 'yes, I read that book'.What is critical in reading this book, is understanding what happenedthroughout the ages. What the pages are saying. And reading this way, one becomes more intuitive.It's a life-learning process, to become more informed, educated to a higher level,to grow one's intuition. That is what makes a person better, for themselves, then, for others.This book speaks loudly about what the intelligent person knows, the frailty of human nature.No matter the century, it's the human character that is the same. And that is the tragedy of humanity,that it repeatedly fails itself by the treatment of its own kind, the human kind.

As an English teacher and theater director at a high school outside of Chicago, I don't read much non-fiction, but I found this book so incredible that I read it twice. My students who hear that word and everyday ("You're ghetto," or "That's ghetto,") hardly know where the word comes from or how its meaning has shifted (to be fair, I knew little myself) over the last 500 years. My students and I found the idea of ghetto so compelling and important that it inspired us to write a play about it called CROSSING AUSTIN BOULEVARD which chronicles the relationship between the West Side of Chicago and Oak Park, its suburb next door, in the 1970s and in the present. Thank you Mitchell Duneier, for this book and Sidewalk too, two totally different undertakings until you consider that both try to understand the plight of man (Sidewalk) and a people (Ghetto) through the multiplicity of both their perspectives and the context that shaped them. Duneier not only writes with great precision and synergy, but he deconstructs a seemingly inscrutable magic trick of white dominance. This is not only a work of great scholarship, it debunks the Northern myth of South: bad, North: good. Turns out everything is messed up but , in part, by design. Reading GHETTO is an awakening, a call to action, a reminder that people have struggled and thrived for hundreds of years not because they were isolated, but in spite of it.

Even readers intimately familiar with the individual works that Duneier discusses will learn from their juxtaposition in this fascinating and well written account of the concept and employment of "ghetto." It is a superb synthesis of biography and intellectual history, and it will be illuminating for anyone interested in urbanism, in sociology, and in the history of twentieth century America.