Glen Petersen Normal Community High School

Hirsch has done an excellent job of detailing how the Chicago ghetto came into being. His emphasis on the forces behind the decisions that have created the ghetto as well as the extreme depravity and inequity is very enlightening especially for those who live far from a major metropolis. The only weakness, certainly by design, is the limited connection between the present crisis of urban centers and the historical origins of the ghetto. Hirsch's thorough coverage of the ghetto will certainly prove to be a valued resource to teach students about this social and economic crisis.

The title of Hirsch's book gives an excellent opening to the issue that there is a connection between race and housing in Chicago. Extensive evidence is given to reinforce this fact. It was enlightening to discover that there were actually two ghettos. He draws the conclusion that the results of the two ghettos were nearly the same, that blacks endured poor living conditions, even though the forces causing them were different. The illustrations of the strategies used by white Chicagoans to isolate and reinforce the ghetto were extensive. Hirsch describes how the great African American migration to the North created a mostly unplanned segregation of the first ghetto in urban Chicago. The second ghetto however was a calculated and determined effort to limit the growth and quality of public housing. for black families.

His explanation thoroughly documents how there is a transition between unplanned ghetto housing of the first ghetto to a deliberate creation of the second ghetto of post World War II. Ifound it particularly interesting that many blacks living in the ghetto had the money to buy better housing but that acceptable living space was often denied to them. Frequently this crisis
was due in large part to the political power wielded by white city politicians. Even though the Chicago Housing Authority attempted to break the boundaries of the ghetto, action by city alderman effectively stopped such progress. Hirsch's illustration of other forces such as educational institutions, wealthy white business owners, white home owners, and the internal division among the black community further explains how the second ghetto came into being.

Both whites and blacks used violence to influence decisions regarding public housing. Hirsch draws some interesting comparisons between white social economic classes and how they responded differently to blacks moving outside of the ghetto. Many of the upper class white neighborhoods passed covenants effectively limiting black settlement. Working class white neighborhoods frequently resorted to violence in response to black settlement. Blacks lacked effective political representation and frequently resorted to riots or other public protests in order to bring about better public housing.

Hirsch's book will prove to be an effective supplemental resource to the crisis of the American ghetto especially to those whose lives are far from Chicago. This book effectively dispels the misperception that life in the North for blacks was full of equality and peace. My students will benefit from Hirsch's details of how discrimination was a destructive force which repressed the black American standard of living. Blacks living in the second ghetto faced a system of discrimination that was powered by many levels of society. Hirsch's work on the second ghetto has illuminated the subject of racial discrimination and segregation.

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