Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh

I found Floating City a fascinating read. This is one of those rare nonfiction books that educates, enlightens, and entertains. Venkatesh's writing is never dry or dull. He invites us along on his journey, and writes as if he's confiding in a friend.

Through Venkatesh, we meet a wide variety of people, most of whom are involved in some aspect of the sex trade. We get to know spoiled rich kids in search of adventure, as well as the desperate and poor who are struggling to survive. Their show more stories are woven together in unexpected ways, sometimes challenging our stereotypes and other times reinforcing them.

But this book is much more than a look at the underground economy. Venkatesh struggles with his own boundaries. His work as a sociologist requires him to maintain an emotional distance, while his humanity makes it almost impossible for him to remain an passive observer. As he studies the behavior of others, he learns some things about himself. If we're paying attention, we'll learn a few things as well. show less

Author Sudhir Venkatesh exhibited breathtaking naiveté when he chose public housing as a topic for his PhD research at the University of Chicago. Venkatesh had grown up in southern California, in an upper middle class neighborhood; his family was East Indian. It wasn’t so much as fish out of water when he walked up to a housing project and tried to interview people; it was fish on Mars. Fortunately he encountered “J.T.”, the local gang leader for the Black Kings, who was able to offer show more protection. (Venkatesh was never offered any overt violence during his research, although he saw a lot of it and actually participated once; he makes the points that the gangs didn’t want violence because it was bad for business – which was selling crack cocaine).


Gang Leader for a Day is both inspiring and tragic; being a middle class white from the Chicago suburbs myself I share some of Venkatesh’s surprise with conditions in the Robert Taylor Homes. I used to see the Robert Taylor homes frequently on trips to and from the University of Chicago (I usually used the longer but less threatening Lake Shore Drive route rather than the Dan Ryan Expressway). The Robert Taylor Homes were a set of twenty-six 16-story buildings stretched out along the Dan Ryan (which conveniently acted as a barrier to keep the inhabitants from the white neighborhoods to the west). Venkatesh was amazed to find that residents of the RTH didn’t even consider calling police or ambulance services (Venkatesh had to loan his car once to medevac a gang member who’d been shot in the leg in a drive-by; the act got him more street cred). He was confounded to find that many of the “how can people live like that” FAQs actually had understandable answers (for example, RHT residents urinated in the stairwells to keep drug users and prostitutes from using them; in Venkatesh’s first encounter with gang members they keep him in a stairwell for a day. He eventually realizes that the liquid slowly dripping from above isn’t water).


Being a sociologist Venkatesh gradually puts together the economics of the Robert Tailor Homes (actually just one building, which was enough). There’s a Chicago Housing Authority representative in the building, Ms. Bailey, who’s supposed to act as sort of an ombudsman for the tenants. Instead, Ms. Bailey collects “taxes”; if your window is broken and you want the CHA to fix it, you need to pay Ms. Bailey. If you want to operate an illegal business (all business is illegal in the Robert Taylor Homes) you need to pay Ms. Bailey varying amounts; your illegal business can be car repair in the parking lot, selling candy from your apartment living room, cutting hair, squatting in the building, or being a prostitute. The Black Kings provide Ms. Bailey with an enforcement mechanism, and the payment can be in kind; Venkatesh discovers that one of Ms. Bailey’s agreements with the Black Kings is that they provide her with a young gang member as a lover (Venkatesh notes that Ms. Bailey is 50ish and heavyset). Venkatesh, again exhibiting tragic naiveté, causes an enforcement incident himself; as part of his research he interviews a number of the “hustlers” in the building – the car repair guy, the handyman – and takes notes on their economics. He then, with the enthusiasm of researchers everywhere, reveals these numbers to J.T. and Ms. Bailey – who promptly raise the “taxes” of the affected parties, getting Venkatesh in trouble with his informants.


Venkatesh has some difficulties with other women in the Robert Taylor Homes; the prostitutes recognize him for a naïve suburban boy and are able to hustle him. He doesn’t admit to sex with any of them and it seems unlikely that any occurred, but he is hustled by one to provide food for her children even though Ms. Bailey had warned him about her. He describes how the apparently high and/or drunk and disorderly dressed prostitute moans that her children haven’t had anything to eat – so Venkatesh goes to a local store and buys them food. Latter Ms. Bailey smirks at him and says she fed those kids that very morning. Ms. Bailey’s secretary is an attractive young woman with writing talent; Venkatesh reads her essays and coaches her. She’s latter shot to death by her father. Another woman has a potential career as a model; her boyfriend seizes her earnings and beats her up when she complains. This becomes a Black Kings enforcement case; they grab the boyfriend to “discipline” him and Venkatesh kicks him in the stomach when it looks like he’s going to escape.


The “gang leader for a day” episode is relatively subdued. J.T. doesn’t actually let Venkatesh do anything important and overrules him (for example, Venkatesh is asked to decide discipline for a pair of drug dealers; one has kept back some money when another failed to pay him. Venkatesh goes for “offsetting penalties” but J.T. notes that keeping back money has to be punished; the offender gets two “mouth shots” and a week’s suspension).


Venkatesh notes the Black Kings are pretty disciplined. Dealers are not allowed to use drugs themselves. They are required to finish high school (leading to an incident where Venkatesh tries to teach during a teacher’s strike. He is unable to maintain classroom discipline; although as near as I can tell Chicago school teachers can’t either). They are not allowed to sell (“work”, in gang parlance) when children are around. They sponsor basketball and baseball tournaments. They see themselves as “community activists” rather than drug dealers – and, to a certain extent, they do provide services that the City of Chicago is unable or unwilling to provide.


It all eventually comes to an end; the Robert Taylor Homes are demolished and the residents are spread throughout the city (by giving them vouchers for apartments). Both J.T. and Ms. Bailey “retire” (at one point, Venkatesh half-jokingly suggests J.T. become his research assistant. Venkatesh, now at Columbia, apparently keeps in touch with J.T. and still considers him a friend.


At one point, the gang’s accountant (T-Bone) gave Venkatesh the gang’s financial records (T-Bone later died in prison). Venkatesh developed this to contribute to Levitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics. It turns out that low level drug dealers have very small incomes; what keeps them working is the chance to move up in the hierarchy (I’ve heard much the same about American management in general).

Venkatesh’s writing is understated but gripping; an easy one-day read. This is not a scholarly work (although Venlatesh has published such an account, American Project; I’ll have to read it). Venkatesh provides no answers; he doesn’t suggest what should have been done or what could have been done at the Robert Taylor Homes, just what was done. show less

Eminently readable and engaging, this book by Sudhir Venkatesh looks beyond the easy conclusions of either sympathy or condemnation for gangs and examines the part they play in an inner-city community. His "in their world but not of it" position lends the book a downer ending as he witnesses but doesn't have to experience the break-up of the community following the destruction of the Robert Taylor homes, but overall, the book is a great read.

I learned about Dr. Sudhir Venkatesh through Freakonomics and the chapter on why gang members still live with their moms. "Gang Leader for a Day" takes that one small chapter and shows the decade of the work and research that originally went into it.

When Sudhir Venkatesh arrives at the University of Chicago to work on a PhD in sociology, he decides to leave Hyde Park and "go exploring" in the Projects. He ends up pulled into studying in very close detail the lives of gang members, hustlers, show more prostitutes, squatters, and people just trying to get by in the Robert Taylor Projects in South Side Chicago. From there he gets a ring-side seat to the politics of gangs, police, tenant associations, Chicago Housing Authority, single mothers, and families trying to survive on welfare or less. His view is revealing -- he sees how crack cocaine makes essentially no one money except the cocaine suppliers, how people rely on each other to survive, how families will pull together in entire floors to give each other essential services so they can survive. He learns the economics of pimps and prostitutes, watches how people struggle, and makes some rather nasty interpersonal mistakes.

It all ends when Chicago decides, in 1995-1998, to tear down the Projects and replace them with very expensive upper class townhouses.

This book is utterly fantastic. While it's written in a colloquial style, it illuminates a huge swath of modern urban America. Highly recommended read. show less