Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community

by Elijah Anderson

In a powerful, revealing portrait of city life, Anderson explores the dilemma of both blacks and whites, the underclass and the middle class, caught up in the new struggle not only for common ground—prime real estate in a racially changing neighborhood—but for shared moral community. Blacks and whites from a variety of backgrounds speak candidly about their lives, their differences, and their battle for viable communities.

"The sharpness of his observations and the simple clarity of his prose recommend his book far beyond an academic audience. Vivid, unflinching, finely observed, Streetwise is a powerful and intensely frightening picture of the inner city."—Tamar Jacoby, New York Times Book Review

"The book is without peer in the urban sociology literature. . . . A first-rate piece of social science, and a very good read."—Glenn C. Loury, Washington Times

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction, Race, Urban, School, Social Science, American History

276 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 1992

About the author

Elijah Anderson holds the William K. Lanman, Jr. Professorship in Sociology at Yale University, where he teaches and directs the Urban Ethnography Project. His most prominent works include The Cosmopolitan Canopy and the award-winning books Code of the Street and Streetwise. His writings have also appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and The New York Times Book Review. He lives in New Haven and Philadelphia.

Reviews

[Jamel Cato]

Case study of the slow gentrification of a Philadelphia neighbordhood adjacent to the University of Pennsylvania. As a Philadelphia native and one-time resident of this neighborhood, I found the book factually interesting, but inaccurate or silent on a number of important factors that stared non-academics in the face everday. The author was a Penn professor when he wrote the book, so as you can imagine it both downplayed and put a positive spin on the University's central and controversial role in the inevitable gentrification.

[Keerthi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Accessibly written. That said, I found a number of the things Anderson says to be unfairly or unkindly presented and/or applicable to a much larger sector of the population than he suggests (see, for example, the section on "baby clubs").

[kami · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was fine. I found a lot of it to be overly repetitive and really obvious -- the whole book felt like a bland statement of facts that I already knew to be true. The reason for this could either be that 1) I'm in the thick of this Urban Underclass class I'm in, and I've had these ideas hammered into me with the past several books and ethnographies we've read, or 2) I went to a lower class elementary school and had parents who went to lower class middle/high schools, and thus have a decent understanding of the "culture" of the underclass compared to upper class white neighborhoods. Whatever the reason may be, I didn't feel like I learned much from the book, because I felt like they were all statements of fact that you would know if you existed as a human being in American society.

Another aspect of the book that added to its blandness was its literal statement of fact. Rather than weaving the lives of Northton and Village residents into narratives, with a clear storyline and characters, it simply described on the surface what the situation and people were like. When I read There are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America, I felt like the storytelling really enhanced the lives of these ghetto residents, allowing the reader to really emotionally connect with the struggle/dynamics and therefore understand it more cohesively.

It was well-written, at least, and I felt like it was a thorough ethnography. The large amount of interviews made the book seem very well-researched. But again, things like drugs controlling ghettos, black men being profiled by the police, white liberals trying to be tolerant but ultimately giving into stereotyping, etc, they were not particularly novel to me, nor were they introduced in a unique or compelling way. I wonder then, if this book was written for white suburbia residents who have no understanding of the lives of urban residents.

[Rafael Suleiman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant ethnographic study of inner-city America.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd first heard about Anderson's Streetwise in a sociology class, when we were discussing how urban dwellers learn to navigate life in the city, learning the steps to perform what Jane Jacobs termed the "intricate sidewalk ballet". I found the notions of what Anderson termed "street etiquette" and "street wisdom" intriguing, where "street etiquette" refers to the set of informal rules that govern our behaviour in public - rules like not staring at strangers, subtly adjusting the trajectory of one's path to accommodate oncoming pedestrians on the sidewalk, etc. "Street wisdom", by contrast, requires a more sophisticated understanding of the street and allows the individual to read or "see through" situations and respond accordingly. It entails being able to decipher the various codes, behaviours and symbols of the street and in turn, send the appropriate signals as the situation requires.

All that was a very lengthy introduction to give context as to why I'd picked up Streetwise in the first place and why I was excited to read it. As it turns out, Streetwise, contrary to what its title suggests (although the subtitle notes that the book is about "Race, Class and Change in an Urban Community"), is really an ethnographic study of two communities in the so-called Eastern City (probably Philadelphia) that Anderson code-names the Village and Northton. Northton is a ghetto while the Village is a more prosperous, racially mixed community. Streetwise explores the different facets of life in Village-Northton - the changing demographics of the two neighbourhoods, the impact of drugs in the Northton ghetto, sex, family and public safety, etc; one chapter of the book is devoted to the topic of street etiquette and street wisdom.

Much of the focus of Streetwise is actually on Northton, with the Village making the odd cameo in the book after its appearance in Chapter 1 of the book titled "The Village Setting" and Chapter 5 "In the Shadow of the Ghetto". The issues that Streetwise delve into are interesting - I found the discussion on the impact of crack on the community, the addictiveness of crack and how rapidly it can wreak havoc on an individual and the community particularly vivid and affecting. But I felt that the book could have been structured more tightly. Each chapter in the book seemed to stand on its own when tighter links could have been drawn between the chapters; after all, the issues they deal with - drugs, sex codes and family life, security concerns, etc - are interlinked. Still, Anderson's writing is extremely accessible and he paints a vivid portrait of life in Northton.

[Renato · Rating 5 out of 5]

Streetwise is a wonderful, seminal work of urban ethnography that helped define the discipline and changed our understanding of poverty and racism in an American city. This treasure of a book is vital today, when the struggles of the poor to adapt to globalization have somehow become associated, in the public consciousness, to the white working class in middle America.

Anderson’s rigorous and composed research illuminates the devastating consequences of the macro-economic trends of the 1980s amongst the poor, and particularly amongst the African American youth. Streetwise shows how de-industrialization, and the subsequent disappearance of a stable and functional labor market for unskilled poor workers, have eroded the social pillars of entire urban neighborhoods. Coupled with wrongheaded, or downright racist public policies such as the “war on drugs”, mandatory minimum sentences, or the end of federal revenue sharing with local governments, the consequences were enduring. Despite writing in 1990, which makes some of his arguments incomplete in hindsight, Anderson makes a compelling case that many of the present-day social problems affecting African Americans, from police violence to criminal justice dysfunction, are rooted very much in those initial structural changes, and the misguided public reaction to them.

Where Streetwise differentiates itself from most other works on poverty is that it is not so much interested in these big picture trends, but rather on how they impact day-to-day lives at the neighbourhood level, through social and cultural norms. For example, in a breathtaking passage, Anderson describes the intricate thought processes that go through two people crossing each other on the street at night, showing the “intricate ballet” (the expression is Jane Jacobs’) that they play to cope with the norms of that social environment. Everyday actions such as dog walking, greeting styles and attire have deep social and cultural meaning in such a context, and Anderson is masterful in extracting insights from these commonplace moments.

Streetwise is, in sum, an indispensable book to help us understand the inner city. It does not judge, nor does it try to glorify poverty – what many others in similar position have done – but it tracks down to a minute level of detail how we have collectively failed to understand, and ultimately assist, those who live in urban poverty.

[Raf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anderson clearly exposes and reveals the race relations between blacks and whites as well as the wealthy, middle class, and poor communities as gentrification increases and expands in American urban areas. Anderson examines the relationships and interactions between the people in the Village and those in the ghetto (Northton) as well as the cultural practices and conflicts between Black, Whites, and Asians. Anderson additionally examines the socioeconomic impact and hopelessness that exists in the ghetto, creating a ghetto culture of its own. Anderson reveals how real estate and property values impact communities once black people "move in" as well as the injustice that occurs within real estate markets that utilize the black culture as a means to make financial decisions. Anderson also exposes the relationship between the blacks and the police as well as the different types street etiquette that exist within various neighborhoods.

[b bb bbbb bbbbbbbb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad for a dumpster score. Sociology book about gentrification and racism in a Philadelphia neighborhood. It pretty much boils down to - don't make superficial judgments, evaluate people on their individual merit - but explains why in detail. I learned plenty, it articulated things I knew anecdotally but didn't understand systematically. Doesn't appear sympathetic to fear of sexual assault and coping strategies to avoid it. uys into the puritan work ethic and private commerce as implied solutions a little much. A tiny bit stuffy, even though it was published in 92 its got a strange 80's feel.Maybe its what sociologists do, but you get the impression people were talking candidly with the author without knowing they were the subject of a study and their lengthy comments would be published verbatim.

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finally finished this. It shouldn't have taken me this long, but sociological nonfiction studies are not my preferred genre.

There wasn't a lot I didn't already know, or assume, but I guess it was nice to have those assumptions validated and reinforced. There's firsthand accounts by the community members that don't really add much to the book; but I did like the way gender, race, and class distinctions are sharply investigated and deconstructed here. Some of this is a bit dated, but it's still relevant to urban life today. I will scan his bibliography, though, and save that for future readings.

[PJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

An in-depth look at urban race and class issues, especially gentrification. A thorough exploration of a difficult subject, based on years of living in a transitional neighborhood, wonderful interviews and scholarly reflection. Set in Philadelphia but could be any major city. The only thing weird about this book was the overuse of "quotation marks" for any sort of "slang words" throughout the "book," it got a bit "tiresome."

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

on page 7 the author states he uses a pseudonym for the city in question,

PLEASE: this means the book is a mix of fiction, a mix of stories from different cities, and a lot of generalized baloney.


about the worst written book I've ever come across
several books written by a man from India about projects in chicago are far better.