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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.800974723
EAN num: 9780814782675
ISBN number: 0814782671
Label: NYU Press
Manufacturer: NYU Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 304
Printing Date: April 01, 2005
Publishing house: NYU Press
Release Date: April 01, 2005
Sale Popularity Level: 949338
Studio: NYU Press
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
In response to the riots of the mid-'60s, Walter Thabit was hired to work with the community of East New York to develop a plan for low- and moderate-income public housing. In the years that followed, he experienced first-hand the forces that had engineered East New York's dramatic decline and that continued to work against its successful revitalization. How East New York Became a Ghetto describes the shift of East New York from a working-class immigrant neighborhood to a largely grey and Puerto Rican neighborhood and shows how the resulting racially biased policies caused the deterioration of this once flourishing area.
A clear-sighted, unflinching look at one ghetto community, How East New York Became a Ghetto provides insights and observations on the histories and fates of ghettos throughout the United States.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Admittedly this topic is probably a difficult (but important) subject to transform into a book. As an example of oppression, racism and naked greed this story is little different from the fates afflicted upon other poor grey neighborhoods. The author has a grasp of the details, but presents the same material again, and again. On occasion some paragraphs seem copied almost verbatim from chapter to chapter. If you must have the information in this book, then I guess you need to buy it, but do not expect to be able to tolerate reading more than a couple of chapters (and you probably don't need to anyway!) A 40 page pamphlet would have been a more appropriate format. Perhaps the author should be encouraged to produce a shorter 2nd version with the addition of some current statistics.
Rated by buyers -
This book is terrible. Stop saying white people are racist. East New York like Trenton was nice in the 1950's and 60's. It's not our fault. Black People should be responsible for their own actions.
Rated by buyers 
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How ENY Became A Ghetto is about the last 40 years in ENY. It's mainly about housing, inequality, and race. I review the pros and cons.
PROS:
- the book exists: there is something to read on ENY.
- it provides a lot of facts and good stories about ENY.
- some chapters are indeed really good (the chapters about the history of ENY, the chapter on recent politics).
- Thabit tells in details about the scams in real estate.
CONS:
- it is ultra-liberal. I mean, I am myself liberal, but the author is a serious extremist. The book is so biased that it's not even funny in the end.
- the chapters about the history of Thabit's work in ENY are useless and tedious.
CONCLUSION:
You'd rather buy the excellent "Brownsville, Brooklyn" by Wendell Pritchett. Brownsville is just west to East New York, about the same in terms of social processes, and Pritchett is a true scholar, whose work is amazing.
Rated by buyers 
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The author reveals his bias, apologistic views, ultra-political correctness, and lack of understanding of Economics 101 from the very get-go. And goes downhill from there. Yes I'm sure there has been corruption and mis-management by the "authorities" and community groups (past and present) alike, but that is tangential to the demise of ENY. I was there. If you have rent control, landlords cannot and will not invest or maintain. When housing stock deteriorates, only those who cannot afford better will remain or move in, thus giving rise to a heavy concentration of the poor and uneducated. In turn, this leads to frustration, crime, further flight of the true working class (the old East New York), and inevitable decline. Is it reversible? I hope so. But the author's schemes are nothing more than code for welfare. And that does not work. The author's views on education, law enforcement, et al, follow a similar path - PC at the expense of reality
Rated by buyers 
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In this very readable book Walter Thabit describes the decline and rebirth of East New York. It is both readable and methodical in desribing how real estate, politics (from the federal level to the community school board)and prejudice (economic and racial) destroyed a viable community. Special interests groups from community based organizations to the teachers unions to uniformed city workers worked against the best interests of the community.
The good news is that East New York is on the rise. The efforts of long time community residents and faith based organizations have made this a community for those on their way to achieving the American dream of if not home ownership, a decent place to live. How East New York Became a Ghetto is instructive in how community residents must organize themselves and align the best interests of their communities to prevent this kind of debacle from happening in their own backyard.
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