Read more
Lance Freeman traces the evolving role of predominantly black neighborhoods in northern cities from the late nineteenth century through the present day. He reveals the forces that caused the ghettös role as haven or hell to wax and wane.
List of contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Embryonic Ghetto
2. The Age of the Black Enclave
3. The Federally Sanctioned Ghetto
4. World War II and the Aftermath: The Ghetto Diverges
5. The Ghetto Erupts: The 1960s
6. The Last Decades of the Twentieth Century
7. The Ghetto in the Twenty-First Century
Conclusion: How to Have a Haven but No Hell in the Twenty-First Century
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Lance Freeman is the Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor of City and Regional Planning and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He was previously a professor in the Urban Planning Program in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University. His books include There Goes the ’Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up (2005).
Summary
The black ghetto is thought of as a place of urban decay and social disarray. Like the historical ghetto of Venice, it is perceived as a space of confinement, one imposed on black America by whites. It is the home of a marginalized underclass and a sign of the depth of American segregation. Yet while black urban neighborhoods have suffered from institutional racism and economic neglect, they have also been places of refuge and community.
In A Haven and a Hell, Lance Freeman examines how the ghetto shaped black America and how black America shaped the ghetto. Freeman traces the evolving role of predominantly black neighborhoods in northern cities from the late nineteenth century through the present day. At times, the ghetto promised the freedom to build black social institutions and political power. At others, it suppressed and further stigmatized African Americans. Freeman reveals the forces that caused the ghetto’s role as haven or hell to wax and wane, spanning the Great Migration, mid-century opportunities, the eruptions of the sixties, the challenges of the seventies and eighties, and present-day issues of mass incarceration, the subprime crisis, and gentrification. Offering timely planning and policy recommendations based in this history, A Haven and a Hell provides a powerful new understanding of urban black communities at a time when the future of many inner-city neighborhoods appears uncertain.
Additional text
For those wholly unfamiliar with the history of the formation of the African-American ghetto, this book is an essential read. Its prosaic style makes it very reader friendly. As such, its biggest draw may be for undergraduate students and others who have little understanding of the historical and social conditions that gave rise to what appear today as blighted urban spaces.
