When Sudhir Venkatesh tried to study poor black Chicago neighbourhoods in the 1980s, he used a questionnaire.
The typical response to questions like, “How do you feel about being poor and black?” was so contemptuous that Venkatesh wondered whether, in addition to the multiple choice answers ranging from a) Very Bad to e) Very Good, he should perhaps have appended f) for Fuck You.
He changed his methodology and hung out in a South Side neighbourhood for years, observing and interacting with its residents, and now he’s got an interesting-sounding book. Here’s a review:
Ghetto Capitalism (Slate)
Amazon link: Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor