Frank Peter Slotkus John H. Hamline Elementary School

One of the main themes of Arnold Hirsh's Making the Second Ghetto, Race and Housing In Chicago: 1940-1960 is that the creation of the Chicago ghetto was inevitable. The strongest point of the book is Hirsch's ability to meticulously explore the relationship between the first ghetto of Chicago and the second one. Hirsh's position is that the first ghetto was a "happenstance" and was in no way premeditated. The sudden mobility of newly freed slaves who desired to migrate from the south to the north was the cause of the first ghetto. The social problems, which are still seen today, arose when too many people attempted to inhabit an area that wasn't large enough to accommodate the population. These areas became the first neighborhoods termed as slums. Adding to the problem of overpopulation was the fact that because of racial tensions and subsequent violence, white Chicagoans felt that blacks moving into their neighborhoods would immediately lower the property values. The second ghetto, on the other hand, was a deliberately planned urban renewal project. The goal of this second ghetto was to ease racial tensions and at the same time, allow for blacks to attain the "American Dream". The Chicago Housing Authority chose to locate the high rise public housing in poorer neighborhoods because of the aforementioned white resistance. The overcrowding that had once occurred soon became more centralized in the emotionless, desolate public housing units. Unfortunately, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that these housing projects created more problems than they solved. For example, in order to develop the projects, entire neighborhoods had to be leveled. This caused many blacks that had once owned property to become homeless. The city had sought to locate these buildings in areas they hoped would eventually develop into vibrant communities, but this never occurred. Blacks were forced to live in an isolated world of poverty and its accompanying despair. Very few options were available for the members of this planned "community." This meant there were very few economic opportunities for blacks living in the CHA units. The cycle of poverty, coupled with the geographic isolation ultimately led to the crime, drug abuse, immobility, etc., that is still present in the housing projects today.

Usually, when reviewing any type of book, numerous problems associated with the style or content of the work can be found. In the case of Hirsch's twenty year history of how race and housing affected Chicago, there was very little to critique. The only problem that there seems to be with the book is its length. Although I am accustomed to reading lengthy historical accounts, some casual students of history might become disinterested with this work because of its size and amount of statistical information. As a resident of Chicago, it is my belief that every citizen of the city should be introduced to the history of race and housing in Chicago, so that they can better formulate and understanding as to why Chicago is still as segregated as it is today as well as to understand the root of many problems that still plague the city.

The next issue to be dealt with concerns how to teach my students some of the lessons learned while reading this book. For my lesson, excerpts will be taken from Hirsch's book that directly relate to my students who are living in the impoverished "Back of the Yard neighborhoods What the students need to take from this lesson is that there was, and still is, a cycle of poverty that exists in many neighborhoods. More importantly, they need to know that the most effective tool they possess to combat the possibility of being caught up in the above mentioned cycle is a desire to be successful in regards to their own education. To further illustrate the hardships of the ghetto, the students will be supplied primary source passages from a book about the trials and tribulations of two young Chicago boys growing up on the west side of Chicago.

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