That said, the author's background and training as a sociologist comes through loud and clear, and ultimately limits his book. While Venkatesh does a good job of detailing the social relationships among the players, he virtually ignores the larger political issues. Why was management so inept as to be virtually non-existent? Why did the drug/crime culture take hold, and how did the gangs transfor themselves into multi-state corporate enterprises? Most importantly, given that CHA is now in the process of demolishing virtually everyone of the buildings which form Robert taylor Homes, how do we avoid creating the same problems in the next generation of public housing.
Excellent bibliography, by the way. A very good place to dig for resources for anyone wanting to study the history of the Chicago Housing Authority since 1960.
Most problematic was the emergence of gangs like the Blacks Kings who became more than just an ordinary street gang -- they became an organized criminal group devoted to making big money through drug deals. A significant part of book is devoted to analyzing attempts to deal with the Black Kings. Some within the community wanted to cooperate with the group conceding that there was no way to stop them from selling drugs. Hence, the only viable policy was compromise. Appeals were to the Black King's leadership to increase public safety, and these efforts worked as long as Kigs benefited. For instance, it's easier to sell any product in an atmosphere of calm rather than chaos. However, when policies were not in the interests of the group they failed, as did Robert Taylor which was eventually torn down.
I find two major weaknesses in the book: First, since social control is the primary theme of the book one would expect more that just passing references to single-parent families in that numerous studies show that when single mothers raise boys by themselves criminal activity increases. Indeed, at Robert Taylor there appears to be a relationship between the rise of gangs and increasing numbers of single parents. It is unfortuante that the author pays more attention to sexual harrassment of women by the Black Kings than single-parenthood, as if harrassment were more important to the quality of life at Robert Taylor than the impacts of single-parenthood.
The second shortcoming of the book is the fact that little attention is paid to the effects of drug taking by the residents of Roberet Taylor who were buying $45,000 worth of drugs per week from the Kings. It seems obviuous that ingesting these amounts of crack and heroin had a detrimental impact on Robert Taylor but for some reason the author largerly avoids the issue. In short, American Project is an interesting study of an urban ghetto, it is unfortunately an incomplete one.
