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With 44 photographs and 30 illustrations.Amazon.com Review
For those who believe the success of cities stands at the bedrock ofthe health of the country or at least those interested in the historical,political and financial aspects of that argument, Here's the Deal isnecessary reading. Ross Miller, a professor of English and comparativeliterature at the University of Connecticut and nephew of playwright Arthur Miller, tracesthe politics of city revitalization in Chicago from the 1950s to the 1990s.Any book about Chicago politics is, by definition, rife with power making andbrokering, and this work is no exception, focusing on the story of a guttedblock in the city and the deals between politicians and developers toresuscitate it. ... Read more

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Good book, could have used an editor
Further proof of the value of editors. There's a good book here and I could find it just by rearranging paragraphs. Interesting stuff, but completely disorganized. Why would the historical background be in thepenultimate chapter? ... Read more

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Founded in 1920, the Negro National League originally comprised teams throughout the Midwest, but the league’s groundwork was laid in one city—Chicago. Two of the season’s eight inaugural teams were based in the South Side, which was also the adopted home of Rube Foster, the “Father of the Negro Leagues.” A former stand-out pitcher in the Windy City, Foster founded the dominant Chicago American Giants. As the first president of the Negro National League, Foster controlled all major aspects of the game, from personnel to equipment and ticket sales, and his influence left black baseball indelibly associated with Chicago. This essay collection presents notable papers delivered at the 2005 Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference in Chicago. With contributions from many Negro Leagues experts, the work offers a cohesive history of Chicago's long relationship with black baseball. After an introduction and an overview, sections cover early Chicago baseball from the nineteenth century to the founding of the Negro Leagues; teams in the Negro Leagues after 1920; players, both well-known and obscure, who spent significant time with Chicago clubs; owners and managers; the East-West All Star Game; ballparks; the Great Lakes Naval Team; and the integration of the Cubs and White Sox. Appendices provide a timeline of major black-baseball events in Chicago and player rosters for Chicago–area teams. ... Read more

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Would he have felt otherwise about the Third?
A.J. Liebling is America's most incisive and poetic journalist.And Chicago is a city worth reading and writing about. But this is not the place to start reading Liebling or reading about Chicago.

Joe Liebling was not of the "what, where, when, who" style of journalism., He needed something to spark his creative interest, someone to admire, if only a likeable rogue. Liebling found nothing and nobody in Chicago to admire, just plain rogues.And here the rogues were Republican press barons, Colonel McCormack of the Chicago Tribune foremost among them. His professional enemies.Moreover, Liebling was bored by what we now call "Middle America", and he didn't like being bored, either.

Unlike his colleague Joe Mitchell at the New Yorker (most of whose work is collected in "Up in the old hotel"), Liebling didn't subscribe to "nihil humanum a me alienum puto". There were simply people and places out there that he had no use for. New York City con men, Norwegian sailors, Louisiana rabble rousers and Nevada cowboys have their place in Liebling's world, but 3 million people all trying to conform to something they themselves couldn't define did not. That's the way Liebling understood Chicago. The various Bohemias that Chicago had nourished or tolerated (see Kenneth Rexroth's "Autobiographical novel, for some examples) were reduced or gleichgeschaltet by Liebling's visit in the Fifties.He hated the place so much that he never made the connections that would help him see behind the facade that Chicago was so anxious to present to the world.

In spite of all I've just said, this is actually an entertaining and in some ways very enlightening book, especially for those now living in Chicagoland. Those unfamiliar with Liebling (and Chicago) might better try his early paean to his native New York City, "Back where I came from", in which Liebling employed his unforgiving eye and mordancy of phrase much more productively.

"The Only Completely Corrupt City in America"
The 1890 census showed that, for the first time, Chicago was the second most populous city in the nation, supplanting Philadelphia.New York, then as now, remained at the top.This one-down relationship gave the Windy City its other famous nickname, "The Second City," which in this book suggests both its inferiority to New York and its incessant striving. Chicagoans seem ambivalent about their status. "People you meet at a party devote a great deal more time than people elsewhere to talking about good government, but they usually wind up the evening boasting about the high quality of the crooks they have met."An alderman tells Liebling that Chicago "is the only completely corrupt city in America."When Liebling reminds him of other corrupt cities, the alderman replies defensively, 'But they aren't nearly as big.'"

Essayist, reporter, humorist A.J. Liebling, himself a New Yorker (who first visited Chicago in 1938, and lived there for about a year between 1949 and 1950, and briefly in 1951), takes a Big Apple-centric view in these 1953 essays originally published in The New Yorker, a magazine to which he frequently contributed. Today, he is perhaps best remembered for his sports writing, especially boxing ("The Sweet Science)" and each year pugilism's top journalistic prize is the "A.J. Liebling Award."Here, Liebling takes aim at the decline of Chicago in the arts, industry, and design, noting the city's brief but glorious apotheosis at the turn of the century and its largely futile self-aggrandizement since then."The city consequently has the personality of man brought up in the expectation of a legacy who has learned in middle age that it will never be his."As a good journalist, Liebling wanted to discover the cause of the turnabout, and Chicago natives who agreed with him offered their own theories:

"Chicago could have had the automobile if Chicago money had gone after it,' a Chicago stockbroker once assured me. "But the big boys let it go by default, they didn't want an industry here that would dwarf them.'" Others trace it to the pacifist stance of Jane Addams (of Hull House fame) during the WWI. In any event, says Liebling, Chicago has been playing catch-up ever since, and the native seems to feel taken. Plays in Chicago are presumed inferior to the New York production of the same play, or, "if they are the New York production, with original casts intact," the actors are presumed to give an inferior performance.Mid-20th Chicago's response to its percieved victimization and inferiority is a pathetic boosterism; pathetic because, try as it may, the Second City's efforts are invariably second-rate, bourgeois, and unknowingly kitschy. FOr example, Liebling complains that Chicago restuarants, unlike those in New York, feel they must actually convince you drink or dine, and so stage hokey shows and color their menus with decorous prose:

"The Porterhouse, a restaurant in the Hotel Sherman, when I last looked in on it, had six cowboys violinists in fringed pants to play "Tales from the Vienna Woods," at your table in order to sell you a hamburger, and the menu listed credits for costume and scenic design.The urge to embellishment found literary outlet in the listing of things to eat, such as `Ah, the PORTERHOUSE!Aristocrat of steaks...most delectable of steaks. Greatest of all the steaks, for within it are encompassed the Tenderloin, the Sirloin, the meaty bone of the full loin.'"

As in his brilliant "The Telephone Booth Indian," Liebling seems drawn to the proletariat, and especially, the scam.Part of Liebling's appeal-and his power as a satirist-is his ability to cloak subjective opinion in the details and tone of the objective journalist.His field reports, however, are highly selective.Liebling's liberal quoting of slang adds to his authenticity:"The Chicago bars also employ blondes known as dice girls, who...keep score on customers attempting a ten-dice game called Twenty-Six. If you win, the house pays four to one, which gives it a seventeen-percent edge. This is about the same as the take of the parimutual machines in New York State.The bar, however, pays its four to one in trade, on which there is a profit of perhaps three hundred percent. One of my most astute Chicago friends, a native, believes the girls [cheat]. I do not believe this for a minute, but it illustrates the working of the Chicago mind.It is inconceivable to my friend that the house should be content with the monumental advantage it already has." Liebling also toys with the Chicago natives who wrote to protest his "New Yorker" pieces. One critic wrote that he hoped he would be the first to "...grasp the hand of Mr. Liebling as he staggers (I hope) backward from reading such reactionaries as this one of many of which he must be in recipience daily!"Liebling, explaining that he will add some of his own comments to the book's footnotes, writes that he has "added a few of my own reactionaries to those of which I have been in recipience."

Saul Steinberg, also of "New Yorker" fame, augments the text with his stylized line drawings. Liebling writes that the view from Lake Michigan is a "serrated wall of high buildings," but that Chicagoans know that "what they see is like a theatre backdrop with a city painted on it"; Steinberg draws a convincing picture of a façade. The sense of fakery extends to Chicago's long running scams in politics, the judicial system, and law enforcement.Liebling interviews a crooked otherwise well-intentioned alderman, who innocently talks about his responsibilites to procure (i.e., buy)votes and procure jobs for the loyal. He describes the city's fixation on the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre, contrasting this with its shorter attention span to current, but more prosaic homicides.Other objects of Liebling's reportage include Chicago Tribune publisher Robert R. McCormick, Chicago sports (though this section is surprisingly brief), strip joints' fleecing of conventioneers,racial tensions ("Chicago's greatest present danger"), and Chicago's intellectual climate: "Everyone you meet belongs to a Great Books Discussion Group [but] the samplings of them are exceedingly small.""In Chicago intellectual circles, a man who can't do a psychoanalysis between two Martinis ranks with a fellow who can't change a tire."

"The Second City" is an interesting though largely dated book; many of the then-current colloquialisms and allusions are obscure today.While Liebling doesn't seem secretly fond of Chicago, his other books suggest that he sees urban and proletarian shortcomings as something indelible in the American way, and there's a kind of sympathetic undertone.However, Chicagoans (and others) who read this Liebling book only might rightfully take offense at some of his pot shots, comments that seem to unfairly single out Chicago. Although Liebling is a master wordsmith and his dry humor is keen, the writing doesn't seem quite as nimble, witty, and strongas in "The Sweet Science" (about boxing) or the aforementioned "Telephone Booth Indian." Still, Liebling's observations skills--his eye and ear for the telling quote or description-are intact and entertaining.

Perfect Prose but a Dated Message.
This is the second A.J. Liebling book that I've read.The first was Between Meals which was absolutely fantastic.Chicago... is a beautiful piece of reportage about the city in which I live.It is marred (seriously) only by its shrunken size.It is a mere 140 pages long and much of the text is bloated by lengthy footnotes and cartoons.Liebling's description of my town is a riveting historical relic that recreates the personality of Colonel McCormick, the newspapers of the past, a social scene that has no bearing to current reality, and demographics that are totally baffling to present residents.This a fifties, pre-riots take on the second city and, as such, one cannot help but be surprised by some of its rhetoric.Parts of the city that were in massive decline then are worth more than all but a few areas in the United States now.This is notably true of the Old Town neighborhood which once possessed only German and Hungarian restaurants but now is a lively center of commerce with one bedroom condos worth as much or more than mansions in the suburbs.Yet Liebling, like everyone else, should not be faulted for not predicting the future as gentrification is something that few thought possible until the eighties--which was long after he died.Nearly all readers will marvel at the complexity and grandeur of his style, however.This man was king of the metaphor as cliches were unknown to him.His example enriches all writers who come across him.If I were you though, I'd try to find these essays for free online somewhere because the price is too excessive for what you actually receive.It's just too short to justify a cover price of $19.95. ... Read more

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In a pilot study applying Berger and Luckmann's social construction of reality framework, Brunious (Loyola U., Chicago)elicits perceptions about school, popular culture, and massmedia from 20 Chicago inner- city black teens. Refuting thestill prevalent myth that poor African- American youth suff ... Read more

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The U.S. home mortgage industry first formalized risk criteria in the 1920s and 1930s to determine which applicants should receive funds. Over the past eighty years, these formulae have become more sophisticated. Guy Stuart demonstrates that the very concepts on which lenders base their decisions reflect a set of social and political values about "who deserves what." Stuart examines the fine line between licit choice and illicit discrimination, arguing that lenders, while eradicating blatantly discriminatory practices, have ignored the racial and economic-class biases that remain encoded in their decision processes. He explains why African Americans and Latinos continue to be at a disadvantage in gaining access to loans: discrimination, he finds, results from the interaction between the way lenders make decisions and the way they shape the social structure of the mortgage and housing markets.

Mortgage lenders, Stuart contends, are embedded in and shape a social context that can best be understood in terms of rules, networks, and the production of space. Stuart’s history of lenders’ risk criteria reveals that they were synthesized from rules of thumb, cultural norms, and untested theories. In addition, his interviews with real estate and lending professionals in the Chicago housing market show us how the criteria are implemented today. Drawing on census and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data for quantitative support, Stuart concludes with concrete policy proposals that take into account the social structure in which lenders make decisions. ... Read more

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Discriminating Risk Deserves a Closer Look
Guy Stuart has presented in a very cogent and readable way some of the reasons why discrimination and segregation persist in U.S. housing markets and it may not be for the reasons most assume. Stuart illustrates how conceptions of "value", particularly in the process of property appraisals, risk estimation in underwriting, and lender-broker-realtor networks characterized by racial homogeneity all contribute to disparities in lending to minorities, particularly African Americans. Stuart illustrates how all of the participants in the process play a role, though none may be directly intending to encourage the negative consequences.

To break the cycle, Stuart correctly suggests that we need to hold GSEs, lenders, regulators, appraisers, and others responsible for correcting disparite EFFECTS, with or without assigning intent to discriminate to any specific actor or group. Whether or not such accountability can or will occur will depend on whether there is political will and a solid understanding of the issues. At least on the latter point, the public is well-served by this book.

The book is well-written in clear and direct prose. Stuart succeeds in avoiding confusing and jargon-laden descriptions. Given the subject matter, this is a real victory for the reader. The book also provides a very useful history of the mortgage lending industry and is recommended for students and activist alike trying to get their heads around a confusing and poorly understood field that has profound impacts on the persistence of racial segregation in the U.S. ... Read more

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Now at least 250,000 strong, the Dutch in greater Chicago have lived for 150 years "below the radar screens" of historians and the general public. Here their story is told for the first time. In "Dutch Chicago" Robert Swierenga offers a colorful, comprehensive history of the Dutch Americans who have made their home in the Windy City since the mid-1800s.

The original Chicago Dutch were a polyglot lot from all social strata, regions, and religions of the Netherlands. Three-quarters were Calvinists; the rest included Catholics, Lutherans, Unitarians, Socialists, Jews, and the nominally churched. Whereas these latter Dutch groups assimilated into the American culture around them, the Dutch Reformed settled into a few distinct enclaves — the Old West Side, Englewood, and Roseland and South Holland — where they stuck together, building an institutional infrastructure of churches, schools, societies, and shops that enabled them to live from cradle to grave within their own communities.

Focusing largely but not exclusively on the Reformed group of Dutch folks in Chicago, Swierenga recounts how their strong entrepreneurial spirit and isolationist streak played out over time. Mostly of rural origins in the northern Netherlands, these Hollanders in Chicago liked to work with horses and go into business for themselves. Picking up ashes and garbage, jobs that Americans despised, spelled opportunity for the Dutch, and they came to monopolize the garbage industry. Their independence in business reflected the privacy they craved in their religious and educational life. Church services held in the Dutch language kept outsiders at bay, as did a comprehensive system of private elementary and secondary schools intended to inculcate youngsters with the Dutch Reformed theological and cultural heritage. Not until the world wars did the forces of Americanization finally break down the walls, and the Dutch passed into the mainstream. Only in their churches today, now entirely English speaking, does the Dutch cultural memory still linger.

"Dutch Chicago" is the first serious work on its subject, and it promises to be the definitive history. Swierenga's lively narrative, replete with historical detail and anecdotes, is accompanied by more than 250 photographs and illustrations. Valuable appendixes list Dutch-owned garbage and cartage companies in greater Chicago since 1880 as well as Reformed churches and schools. This book will be enjoyed by readers with Dutch roots as well as by anyone interested in America's rich ethnic diversity. ... Read more

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Amazingly detailed
Swierenga does a fantastic job of pulling out all the details, both historic and personal, of the Dutch people who settled in the Chicago area. From religion to schools, societies, businesses, politics, to the "other Dutch," this book covers it all and includes wonderful photos of old Chicago, the farms, churches, schools, transportation (horse-drawn wagons, milk trucks, garbage trucks, etc) and families. Much of the book deals with the religious aspects of Dutch immigration and life as religion played a huge and fascinating part in the daily lives of the Dutch. "Dutch Chicago" is an amazing compilation of history and geneaology entwined with personal stories and interesting tidbits... very readable, very educational.

Great Book!
My Father's side of the family grew up in Cicero, and this book is a fantastic resource to see what it was like for my ancestors.Some of it is a little dense, and it focuses quite a bit on the church and religion, but that's understandable since that was one of the main things that held the Chicago dutch together.I have to give it 5 stars, though, just for the fact that there is a picture of my grandpa in this book!

Where are all the other Dutch/American books ????
This has to be the best Dutch/American book written to date. Countless times I have been dismayed at the lack of Dutch/American books written , and the lack of those displayed or for sale in predominant Dutch areas. This book whets the appetite , but we need more. More books on the old country in English , and more on the Dutch immigration to the US.

This book is a treasure of facts and stories of the Dutch immigrant's experience coming to Chicago. Squabbles in the churches , dutch clubs , and how the Dutch shaped Chicago areas , like Pullman , Roseland , and Englewood.

A must read if you are into history and the Dutch. It filled in some blanks of my own understanding of my upbringing ! ... Read more

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A valuable addition to the recorded history of Butte
Probably no book can do full justice to Butte, Montana which, for 50 years up to the start of World War II, was the most interesting city in America. While Butte was a wide open, boisterous mining town with illegal gamblingand prostitution operating openly and unabashedly,it had vast flocks offervent church goers and it managed to nourish its small pockets of refinedculture and art. Butte had its millionaires, its poor, its highlydiversified foreign cultures yet proudly asserting it Grand Americanism.

With all of that, Butte was ugly, seared grey by acid fumes fromsmelters; it perched on a hillside spiked by mines gallows and blemished bycountless yellowish mounds of ore tailings as if the earth had spilled outits guts like vomit.

Mary Murphy's book, Mining Cultures; Men, Women andLeisure in Butte, 1914-41 does an admirable job of touring around the edgesof what was Butte during those years. She got at only the edges for thoseare the limits she set for herself. Well researched and documented, she wascareful not to report her numbers in boring, mind-numbing detail and sheserved them up garnished by an assortment ofinteresting and revealinganecdotes.

Ms. Murphy's book is a valuable addition to a pitifully smallcollection of works on a city which deserves greater study.

A fascinating tour of social change in a smokestack city
This is a fascinating look at changing manners and mores in a major industrial community during the two decades between the two World Wars. The city which Murphy dissects, Butte (Mt.), adds its own quirky character to this study. But you don't need to know much about Butte or mining to enjoy Murphy's engaging style, entertaining anecdotes, and keen insights about a turbulent period of social and economic change in urban America. ... Read more

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A honest and truthfull reference book
This book talks about how funds were mis appropriated and redirected from it's intended target "the poor".

Systems Thinking Applied to Gentrification
This book is a great comparative study between two economically gentrifying communities: Harlem (New York) and Bronzeville (Chicago).Hyra takes a "systems thinking" approach (though he does not call it that) to see how global and national forces interact with municipal political structures, which interact with community organizational structures, which all work together to affect local conditions.These are the lenses through which he views gentrification in those two communities.

He also notes that while Bronzeville and Harlem are gentrifying economically, their racial composition is not changing--they both remain primarily African American neighborhoods.He analyzes intraracial, cross-class conflict.

Hyra's interest is in displaced non-home-owning residents of each community.He keeps this population in mind throughout the book and makes recommendations at the end for how to minimize resident displacement in gentrifying communities.

The 4 stars (instead of 5) are only because the writing needs an editor (it's not very concise; typographical errors and run-on sentences are surprisingly common for a University of Chicago Press Book).But this can be overlooked--the concepts in this book are well worth understanding and exploring. ... Read more

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Treasured history
This book is a treasure for theatre students and enthusiasts, a valuable resource for everyone interested in the pieces of history that are in danger of being lost to future generations.

Steve Susoyev, author of People Farm

"Magic Time" in the Village
Never heard of Caffe Cino? Try Bernadette Peters, Sam Shepard . . . Al Pacino? Yes, all got stage time in their fledgling careers at the legendary Greenwich Village cafe/theatre known as Caffe Cino. It was the seminal womb of Off-Off-Broadway theatre in New York. This space, inhabited by founder Joe Cino and a host of practically mythic characters, was a non-judgemental---and magical---laboratory for a generation of new theatre artists, many but not all gay. It was a place where they could risk, and often fail, but also create groundbreaking successes.

Scholar Wendell Stone has done a masterly job of snatching important historical interviews, first-hand accounts, and documentary artifacts from the precipice of obscurity. We are all richer for it. Moreover, he does so with such grace and obvious affection for the subject that the factual read turns out to be a most pleasant ride. Woven through the saga of the location is the elegant tragedy of the man, Joseph Cino, a figure practically unknown, but a determined soul who literally sacrificed himself for his small corner of artistic influence.Stone has redeemed that sacrifice with this simple but illuminating snapshot of a "magic time" and place---New York's Greenwich Village in the 1960s---and the merry band of genderbenders who presided over Caffe Cino. New Yorkers (wherever you may live); theatre lovers; gay historians; students of life, love, and loss---this book is for you.

I have to end this review with a disclaimer: I know Wendell Stone very well. He is a most respected colleague and friend. We did PhD work concurrently and I watched this material develop from an idea to an important and exciting work. I've loved this topic for a long time now and am pleased to see that Wendell's treatment of it has been so appreciated. It's a good book by a good guy. Read and enjoy!

... Read more

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For generations, visitors, journalists, and social scientists alike have asserted that Chicago is the quintessentially American city. Indeed, the introduction to "The New Chicago" reminds us that 'to know America, you must know Chicago'. The authors boldly announce the demise of the city of broad shoulders and the transformation of its physical, social, cultural, and economic institutions into a new Chicago. In this wide-ranging book, twenty scholars, journalists, and activists, relying on data from the 2000 census and many years of direct experience with the city, identify five converging forces in American urbanization which are reshaping this storied metropolis. The twenty-six essays included here analyze Chicago by way of globalization and its impact on the contemporary city; economic restructuring; the evolution of machine-style politics into managerial politics; physical transformations of the central city and its suburbs; and, race relations in a multicultural era.In elaborating on the effects of these broad forces, contributors detail the role of eight significant racial, ethnic, and immigrant communities in shaping the character of the new Chicago and present ten case studies of innovative governmental, grassroots, and civic action. Multi-faceted and authoritative, "The New Chicago" offers an important and unique portrait of an emergent and new 'Windy City'. ... Read more

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Unique Perspective on Urban Development
Wille opens a window into the usually closed back room dealings behind major urban renewal projects.Having apparently unlimited access to the developers allows her to see the entire process of urban renewal from conception to fruition from the inside.The size of this project is unique for a private development:Dearborn Homes originally was meant to encompass the entire area directly south of Chicago's loop.Its backers were alos unique--the real movers and shakers of Chicago's business community between the late 60's and the early 80's.

The fact that deveklopment of Dearborn park spanned so many administrations in Chicago (including Daley I, Harold Washington, and Daley II) means that the politics involved were complex.Dearborn Park also became the focus of several intense community struggles--sometimes directly related to the development, and sometimes the development was only part of a much larger struggle over the general direction of development in Chicago.

The weakness of Wille's book derives directly from its strength.While Wille provides an unmatched view of the development porocess from the developer's prospective, Wille gives short shrift to the perspective of politicians and other City officials (who come accross as shallow people who stand in the way of the development for no apparent reason), and woefully short shrifts the very powerful grass roots movement which challenged the City's concentration on developing middle and upper income housing, at the expense of low cost housing.

Ultimately, Dearborn Park can only be understood as part of this larger debate on the direction of the City of Chicago.Wille has produced a book unmatched for its insights into the actions and motivations of one set of players in this debate--Chicago's major financial and real estate institutions.The book does not, however, tell the story from any other perspective.

A Must-Read for anyone who cares about our cities
This book is every bit as good as "Boss" without Mike Royko's acid pen. It should be required reading for urban planners, architects, city zoning officials, and anyone who thinks they know how people should live better than the people themselves.

It's a graphic depiction of how a wonderful, noble idea (the transformation of abandoned railyards and boarded-up industrial and skid-row buildings into the vibrant residential neighborhoods known as Dearborn Park and Printers Row) was nearly destroyed by partisan politics and petty differences. I had the opportunity to see the physical changes firsthand over the last 25 years, and they were painfully slow. I had no idea of the behind-the-scenes sleight-of-hand that made it all possible, and Lois Wille makes what could have been something boring into a page turner.

I won't give away the climax. I will say that the children of this brand-new central-city neighborhood were robbed, and "robbed" is the only word that adequately describes what happened.

If you're a longtime city resident you already care about our cities. If you're a NIMBY suburbanite or small-town resident, or if you live on a farm and can see the half-finished frames of yet another subdivision marching toward you, you should care. Why? When cities become unlivable and people pack up and leave, guess where they go?

Whoever you are, buy and read this book.

Great insight into the politics of urban renewal
I have loved every minute of this book.This is a great summary of the entire South Loop development, including Printers Row, Dearborn I and II, Central Station, River City...

What has been most fascinating is theinsight into Chicago politics beginning with Richard M. Daley'sadministration and continuing to Richard J. Daley's current City Hall. Readers gain a real appreciation for what goes on in Chicago to getneighborhood projects developed and financed.

While certainly aninformative read for South Loop denizens, this book offers great Chicagodevelopment stories that any Chicago area resident will appreciate.Plus,anyone that doubts the clout of City Hall in Chicago will quickly learnotherwise. ... Read more

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Mean Streets focuses on the streets, parks, schools, and commercial venues of Chicago from the era of the 1919 race riot to the civil rights battles of the 1960s to cast a new light on street gangs and to place youths at the center of the twentieth-century American experience. Andrew J. Diamond breaks new ground by showing that teens and young adults stood at the vanguard of grassroots mobilizations in working-class Chicago, playing key roles in the formation of racial identities as they defended neighborhood boundaries. Drawing from a wide range of sources to capture the experiences of young Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, African Americans, Italians, Poles, and others in the multiracial city, Diamond argues that Chicago youths gained a sense of themselves in opposition to others. ... Read more

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A Fresh and Fascinating Look
I was skeptical about picking up yet another book on youth gangs and juvenile delinquency, but I was happy to discover that Mean Streets offers an entirely new perspective on these issues. In fact, the book is not at all about kids getting into trouble, but rather how young people played key parts in neighborhood struggles and conflicts that often divided communities along racial and ethnic lines. I was particularly interested in the last two chapters, which show how street gangs became involved in the civil rights and black power movements. Diamond does a great job at capturing how young kids in Chicago's poorest black neighborhoods viewed their role in these movements. But he is no less attentive to explaining what was motivating the working-class white kids who were throwing rocks at these young civil rights protesters. Mean Streets shows us in vivid detail what a battleground Chicago was in the 1960s. I recommend it to anyone interested in understanding how ordinary young people experienced and participated in the historic events of these years.

A fascinating and deeply researched analysis
I couldn't disagree more with the previous review. I found the prose somewhat dense at times, but for the most part clear and convincing. More importantly, this book is based on an enormous body of rich data, and, unlike many historians, the author is not afraid to bring complex theoretical insights to the stories he is revealing. As someone who works on youth issues, I was convinced by the book's pathbreaking move to place youths and street culture at the center of our understanding of racial identity and neighborhood politics. I was also impressed by the author's ability to move from the story of European immigration in the early twentieth century all the way through the era of civil rights and white backlash without losing any precision. I would recommend this book to anyone working on urban politics and culture in the twentieth century.

A Disappointment
I expected much from this book but found the prose turgid and the author never able to deliver on his promises. Unless you're from Chicago and lived through those years when gangs rules the windy city, you wouldn't be able to penetrate the very dense prose and tie the loose ends together. There's no way that one can read this book from start to finish without refraining from flipping ten pages at once. I was able to glean e few things here and there but as an aspiring student of masculinity I was quite disappointed. ... Read more