I am surprised to see so many 5-star reviews. Everyone of course has his reason to love this book. To me, however, the disappointing factor is that the author had the most interesting materials that most writers would die for, but he is such a terrible storyteller. The book is dull to read. Dull to death. The little episodes here and there might wake you up, but there are only few.

I admire his courage and determination, but it is unfair for a person like this guy to write about such precious experience. He should've give all the materials to a better writer who could have delivered much better.

This is a narrative of Sudhir Venkatesh as he explores the community and economy of a crack gang. This is a very interesting book and I think it really helped me understand the world better. I would suggest this to anyone that will work with the public, any teachers, police officers, military officers, and all other public servants.

Sudhir Venkatesh takes an unbelievable leap into the inner city projects of South Chicago. Within this book he does a remarkable job at illustrating the difficulties and endless traps faced by the inner city residents of Robert Taylor projects. What he also illustrates is how creative the community is, and how they find ways to turn lemons into Mike's Hard Lemonade. Furthermore, the book did a great job at explaining two great characters (Ms. Bailey and J.T.) and how each of their styles, though questionable in practice, are highly effective--to them, the end is less important than the means--and rightfully so.

Great book! I suggest reading it as it also teaches you that during a time when tightening your belt is common place, he or she with the greatest political power and creativity will always prevail.

I just finished this book. It is very interesting and kept my attention to the very end.
Although I ended up on this book by accident, I'm so glad I did - it was worth the read.

I had many misperceptions about life in the projects until I read this book. You can read the other reviews to get a good idea of what the author says:
1) The drug gangs are a government within a government in the black subculture in the South Side of Chicago.
2) Virtually everyone has to be a hustler to make the few dollars they can to survive and make life a little more comfortable.
3) The project residents are constantly lied to by the city, housing authority and gang leaders. The leaders lie to themselves that they are doing good for the community.
4) Most of the project residents are just trying to get by in an impossible culture that they are born into and ill-prepared for.
5) The drug gang leaders are much like organized crime, with foot soldiers, middle managers, and king-pins at the top. They live by their own values and rules.
6) The gangs exploit the blacks by selling them poison (crack cocaine), then coercing and taxing them, all the while giving some of the money back making it look like they are helping the black community.
7) Left to their own devices, many of the blacks would start up their own small businesses and make money without government or gang interference. The residents band together to trade goods and services to survive.
8) Almost everyone is corrupt to some degree--the government, community leaders, the gang leaders and even the police. Like many foreign countries, you get no help until there is a payoff.
9) The blacks seem to see themselves as a distinctly separate culture and ethnic group from the white population, much like the Muslims today. This would seem to impede assimilation to one society.

Highly recommended for an inside view of gangs and project residents.

I guess this is what happens when someone writes a book that should ooze with anger and emotion, but comes out sterile and removed, If this is not an example of voyerism at its worst?... . Stranger than fiction, because fiction is meant to entertain and this material is so pathetic, that , the author missing this angle, shows not a "hustler mentality", but of an elitist. The author was concerned about his own legal problems,as far as the witnessing and documenting of felony crimes, while idealistally he could have been a force for good, while not stepping on too many toes. To me this is where his end of the bargin should have been, considering his intrusion into this world of a mental prison without physical walls. Oh yeah, guess what Angelina, Madonna, and the rest of you, you should WAKE THE F UP, you don't have to go abroad to find anarchy. Don't read, if your into denial.

I found the book to be very good, however I thought it could have been better.

While it contained many great stories about events Sudhir experienced, I would have preferred it if it was a biography on the gang leader, or the gang.

A bit less of the sociology side of things would have made it more enthralling. The title over-hypes things though, as - trying not to give things away here - his day as a gang leader is a very small part of the story.

All things considered though, not bad.

I heard about this book as a result of the author doing an interview on NPR. Since I live in a somewhat mixed neighborhood in-town in a mid-size city, I had some personal interest as to insights into gangs and lower-income life.
I found the book to be fastinating reading, and an easy read. The reader should understand that the gang the author tagged along with and the housing projects that he frequented were of a large scale in a large city, and may not be indicative of lower level gangs and street neighborhoods with less structure. Still, the leadership, management, and structure involved in running a large gang operation was something I had not anticipated. Likewise, the author describes, and was conflicted by, as was I, an unexpected and enlightening interplay of the various "good deeds" that the gang performed versus their illicit activities and power tactics. The idea that the gang filled a "services" void (protection, food and clothing contributions, youth activities, dispute mediation) for the residents of the community is something I heard of before but did not really think about.
The book left me thinking about what it really would take to bring this sector of our society out of poverty and into the mainstream. The author does not address this, or any solutions at all, and this is perhaps the books' only shortcoming.

Like many others, I found the chapter of Freakonomics based on Venkatesh's data on drug dealing to be the most compelling of the book. So I looked forward to picking up this extended account of his journey into the murky world of Chicago public housing and the research he did there from 1989-95. His entry into that world is a decidedly naive and somewhat accidental one, as he commences work toward his sociology PhD at the University of Chicago by assisting in a research project. This project requires him to go to several apartments in a public housing high-rise to administer a rather ridiculous questionnaire. Unfortunately, the resident drug gang suspects him of being a spy for a rival gang and holds him overnight until their boss can decide what to do with him.

Fortunately, the boss ends up taking a shine to Venkatesh and allows him to hang out around the gang and its slice of the Robert Taylor Homes housing project. This one decision (based at least partially on the gangster's belief that Venkatesh will use the material to write a biography of him), grants the student and budding scholar almost unprecedented access to the day-to-day functioning of a street gang, as well as a passport to the roam around the projects talking to the residents about their daily life. Venkatesh is very up front about his naivety, his discomfort with the role he was playing to gain the trust of people, the complexity of needing to befriend them in order to hear their stories, and the benefit his access to their stories has had on his academic career. In the end, he concludes that he is just as much a "hustler" as those he meets throughout his seven years, taking advantage of others as needed, in order to survive.

The focus of the book is on his interaction with the "Black Kings" gang, however, much of the material on their workings is interesting but not necessarily revelatory Basically, if you've seen season one of The Wire, you'll be more or less equally up to speed on the mechanics of drug slingin' street gangs. This is at least partially due to the rather edited view of operations the gang afforded him. What's more surprising in his account is the naked power over daily life in the projects wielded by the female middle-aged president of the tenants association, who comes across as just as venal and egocentric as the gang leader. Indeed, she and the gangster had an established rapport and arrangement, in which she could tap the gang for "donations" for community events, or to police the buildings, in exchange for not raising a fuss about their drug dealing. Venkatesh also spends a fair amount of time with the regular "citizens" of the projects, as well as a few community workers and one policeman. A striking absence from his fieldwork is any attempt to interact with the Chicago Housing Authority, under whose auspices the Robert Taylor Homes falls, and whose utter ineptitude and corruption pervades the entire book.

The cumulative effect is a rare look at the networks of power within a poor urban community, as well as a cautionary tale about the strengths and weaknesses of the ethnographic process. I found myself rather more drawn to his stories of the various licit and illicit hustles people run in order to make ends meet -- it turns out these are the focus of an earlier work of his called Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, which I'll probably end up reading at some point.

Note: As at least one other reviewer has noted, those interested in the "participatory observation" approach to studying gangs would be well-advised to check out Martin Sanchez-Jankowski's Islands in the Street: Gangs and American Urban Society, based on ten years of fieldwork among 37 gangs in New York, Los Angeles, and Boston. Rather oddly, Venkatesh never refers to it.

I enjoyed this very much. Sudhir can write so well that it's one of those "you can't put it down" books. I also learned a great deal of interesting knowledge that I would not have been able to find out any other way: not only what the drug trade is like, but what life is like inside a dilapidated low-cost housing tower. I've been recommending this to all my friends.

This is a very readable book - sad, funny and haunting. However I have some very ambiguous and sometimes very negative feelings towards the author Sudhir Venkatesh, especially while reading his last chapter. For most of the book, the relationship between Sudhir and JT comes across as a warm and trusting freindship. I really was rooting for both of them: for Sudhir to be successful in his academic ventures and for JT - not to end up being killed or land in jail. But the last chapter was very off-putting. I was pained when Sudhir says JT wasn't his friend and he doubts whether he ever was. He also sounds very condescending when he describes JT as being clingy. It really appears that Sudhir was really using JT for his research and all the "friendship" and camaraderie was just playacting - a means to an end. In the end Sudhir made his academic career out of the people who befriended him and after his mission was accomplished, he has discarded them like a used glove.
I am an Indian-American and I am proud of the success and acclaim that Sudhir Venkatesh has recieved first for his part in "Freakanomics" and now for "Gang Leader For a Day". However as a fellow South Indian, I would like to remind him of another South Indain virtue: Do not kick down the ladder that you climbed on to fame and fortune.

"Rogue sociologist" and author Sudhir Venkatesh is aptly described in GLFAD's foreword as "born with two abnormalities: an overdeveloped curiosity and an underdeveloped sense of fear." Both are evident in this impressive narrative of his extensive, nearly decade long doctorate research in sociology, conducted while embedded in the Chicago projects. Venkatesh unwittingly set the bar high: his home away from home, which he more or less stumbled upon while naively (yet purposely) straying far away from his University of Chicago on an ethnographer's quest, was Robert Taylor Homes, one of the nation's largest and most violent ghettoes. Not to mention the late 80s and early 90s marked a period especially tarnished by an epidemic of ruthless and widespread gang activity, not the least of which was due to the pervasive sale and abuse of the too-affordable crack cocaine. This story is as much about the projects and their interplay with the drug trade as it is about Chicago's street gangs.

Venkatesh penetrated the inner circles and high ranks of the vicious, drug-dealing street gang the Black Kings by more or less going to places that he shouldn't have, and fraternizing with people he should have run from. Venkatesh seemed to avoid the gang's wrath through a combination of childlike naiveté and flattery; his access to main character and Black Kings leader J.T., for instance, was engendered by the latter's mistaking Venkatesh for his biographer. The gang also attempted to use "The Professor" to spread its propaganda, emphasizing how its money and security made the projects safer, and making sure Venkatesh took ample notes at events like community outreach programs, voter registration drives, and life-skills workshops. Fortunately for the GLFAD's readers, Venkatesh's curiosity extended to the gang's seedier side, and his descriptions of digging beneath the surface to witness beatings, shootings, and extortion make the story a page turner.

That's not to say that Venkatesh didn't possess common sense and his wits about him, at least as he got older and wiser. He had a knack for knowing when to stop asking questions, and when not to get involved in the brutal mayhem around him (being an admitted coward works wonders that way, although Venkatesh second guessed a lot of his decisions not to at least try to involve the police). He made a great many alliances with gang leaders, community activists, squatters, cops, prostitutes, and garden variety hustlers, while never pitting them against one another- a balancing act that got more delicate the longer he stayed, especially as events like FBI raids and the planned demolition of the projects increased paranoia among Robert Taylor's residents.

Venkatesh's relationship with J.T. is the best chronicled and most powerful of GLFAD. The gang leader is no clichéd thug with a heart of gold, and yet his positive contributions to his community are more evident than the often subtle influence of drugs. He was college educated, loved his extended family, was more honest than most about his role in the community, and worked hard at his illicit "profession." [GLFAD gets its title from J.T.'s handing over his responsibilities to Venkatesh for a day, after the latter questions how difficult his "work" really is.] J.T. craved legitimacy and waxed about how a drug economy was "useful for the community," by redistributing undesirable drug addicts' money into the hands of ordinary citizens through the gangs' philanthropic efforts. His relationship with Venkatesh was both intimate and instructional, and daresay, sweet at times (particularly at the story's end).

Sadly, the uplifting messages are few, and a big theme of the book is how conventional sociology tools are ill-fitting to Robert Taylor Homes' hardships, and how Venkatesh's colleagues were (understandably) out of touch with the inner-city. The outlook on the projects' side wasn't any rosier: take home messages from the projects included (i) everyone is a hustler when you're facing extreme impoverished circumstances, with few exceptions; and (ii) a thirst for power trumps- although can coexist with- helping your fellow man. The sense of community was never as powerful in Robert Taylor as when in lockstep with lining the pockets of those extending a helping hand. No birthday party was assembled without drug money funding, soda kickbacks from local markets, and hired hot dog grilling duty; well-connected (and self-appointed) housing authorities assisted tenants for "consulting fees"; neighborhood meetings couldn't assemble without specious security detail and room fees. Ventakesh himself realized his complicity when it was pointed out to him that his research was a hustle, too: he exercised kindness and showed compassion to those in the ghetto, but his research and data were the ends justifying much of his means.

I really enjoyed this book a lot. It's not a ton of climactic, over the top stuff, but it kept me interested throughout. I'm not a reader (more of a tv person unfortunately for my weakening brain) but I read this book in a couple of days, and I can't even remember the last time it took me less than 2 weeks to finish a book. It almost made me want to go to a ghetto (there are plenty near where I live) and hang out to see what the people are like, but I don't think it would be as easy for a woman to do as it was for a man (few things are, I guess). Anyway, I enjoyed this book a lot because it really gives you some insight into why rich people get richer and poor people get poorer. Sad but so obviously true.

This is a fascinating book about a sociology student doing research in a low-income project in Chicago to find out how it feels to be black and poor and how they survive. He started with a questionnaire, but after getting laughed at and challenged to hang out with the people and see how things are, he abandons his questionnaires and hangs out with a gang for several years. This is non-fiction, based on actual experiences of the author who also talked to others in the community to find out their view of the gang and how they live. The funniest part was when J.T., the gang leader let the author be the gang leader for a day so he would find it wasn't at all as easy as he thought and his respect and admiration for J.T. increased. It was surprising to see that the gang was actually a well-run drug business. It's primary purpose was selling cocaine and keeping "peace" in the neighborhood, not fighting with other gangs or stirring up trouble. Whenever there was a fight or someone would get hurt, no one ever called the cops. They'd call on the gang members for help instead. No ambulance would go to the projects.

It gives insight into the role gangs play in the neighborhood, how community leaders cooperate with the gangs, how hopeless some peoples' lives can be and the ineffectiveness of the police and government agencies. I recommend it to anyone who wants to see how life in the low-income projects is, at least in some places. Very educational and a good read!

Under the pretense that he was writing the gang leaders biography, the author was able to get firsthand research about the gang itself. It was very fascinating to see how organized gangs can be, and how "important" they can be to their communities. But I felt disgust at the authors admiration and respect for the gang and its leader. As I read the book I quickly came to realize how naive the author is...

If you are interested in Gangs, Chicago, or Sociology this is a must have book! Great Book!

I read this book for book club. It was a quick, fascinating, and easy read. Lots of good points to think about and discuss. Recommend for academics and folks who care about humanity. Interesting economic issues raised as well.

This book is just awesome!! Sudhir tells the story of J.T., a Chicago gang leader of the BK's, the project that they run and the people in the projects that their lives are affected by. It's just so fascinating!! You will get hooked on page 1 and will find it hard to put it down. I hated to see it end. This is a must read book for sure.

--Gerard Zemek, husband of author of "My Funny Dad, Harry"

This book was a fantastic read and I would highly reccomend it to anyone. My wife and in-laws are currently reading this now after me and I am getting rave feedback from them also.

A great book for anyone!

This is a very interesting read. It is more of a memoir of his time in the projects, rather than an academic dissertation on the plight of the urban poor. Not the most riveting book I have ever read, but it is an quick read that has some very memorable moments.

Thus book starts out somewhat weak, and that mimics the author's personality and character when he stars this research. By the end of the book, he is sure of himself and the book is better compiled as well. This is a good read and a good insight into a drug life that is made more commonplace. The indication of how the cops profit as well is know and shown again here.

What do Americans do when they have been so marginalized that their life options are cut off at the knees and narrowed down to a trickle: so much so that they have nowhere to turn to subsist, but to crime and corruption; where there are no social services; everywhere there is drug addiction, despair, misery and public violence; tensions are so "hair trigger" that every incident becomes a potential Defcon 5 event; only corrupt police will enter your communities; kids attend dilapidated schools that teach nothing; they are often killed by drive-by-shootings, and parenting is so poor that it amounts to societal negligence; even charities don't show up; no grass or trees or flowers will grow; there are no pets: only the ubiquitous smell of urine, vomit, and used condoms in the stairwells; and the neighborhoods are "isolated in plain sight," plopped down hard in the middle of unimaginable affluence?

Sounds like a cruel cultural joke, written for one of Adous Huxley's futuristic Science Fiction tales, doesn't it? Welcome to any high-rise housing project in the USA. University of Chicago grad student (from UC San Diego, by way of India, Sudhir Venkatest) gives answers to how this could happen the "old fashion or ethnographic way:" By living among such people. This book is an informal status report to renowned Sociologist and University Professor William Julius Wilson, of almost 6-years of Venkatest living and traveling with his host, a gang leader "JT," of the Black Kings gang. It is a report of the author's research, as he participated in the "off-the-books" economy of "trickle-down corruption" as it was being practiced in the Robert Taylor "housing project" of southwest Chicago.

The research seeks to answer the deeper overall question of: How these things can be allowed to happen in the richest nation in the world? The subtext of this book gives a two-part answer to that question: one part is Oscar Lewis' "Culture of Poverty;" the other part is what Gary Webb called the "Dark Alliance": that is, the unlikely intersection between the well-regulated system of "trickle-down cocaine corruption," and Lewis' "Culture of Poverty:" two companion systems of misery that descend upon the poor like locust doing a plague, and that the rest of America has learned to turn a blind eye to, so long as they exist and operate only in certain lower class communities.

Both parts only seem to come fully into play when things begin to fall between the cracks of the larger economy. And here we get to see at ground level just how big those cracks can get when Oscar Lewis' so called "high risk irresponsible" cultural behavior (referred to in America's ghettoes as "hustling") intersects with "low risk high leverage cocaine corruption" -- and then the two are parts are allowed to intermix and metastasize along the economic and social grids of America's black poor.

Both this book and Webb's book "Dark Alliance" should be sold and read as a companion set of a two-part American tragedy about how America's two parallel universes, one black and the other white, are connected by a wormhole of "trickle-down drug-based corruption." Both books are harrowing stories of how cocaine, operating simultaneously at both ends of the political spectrum, has turned one nation, divided by color, upside down, morally.

Webb's book, "Dark Alliance" is about how the "Just Say No to Drugs" Reagan administration actually set off the "crack cocaine explosion" that fueled the inner city social meltdown discussed in Venkatest's book. That explosion, if one can believe Webb's account, appears to have been a carefully orchestrated dumping of hundreds of tons of the white powder into the black inner cities in exchange for sending the proceeds to the "Nicaraguan Contras." In this sense, the book is a story about how the other end of the cocaine pipeline worked: about the carnage Oliver North's devilishly clever but hypocritical "cocaine strategy" reaped on the inner cities of the U.S. and about how one mid-level gang functionary, "JT," and his cohorts in the Robert Taylor Housing Project, turned the Reagan supplied cocaine into crack and used it to ply their trade, and to provide, as best they could, the services that otherwise should have been provided by the city of Chicago. Not surprisingly, Webb's book also tells a similar story about "JT's" entrepreneur LA gang counterpart, called "Freeway Ricky Ross."

Venkatest's book continues this saga independently, as it paints in bold relief, a stark picture of the two Americas predicted a generation ago by the Kerner Commission Report: one black and one white; one content and satisfied with America's status quo racial arrangements; the other teetering on existential chaos and extinction, as a result of them: One that is completely insensitive to the long and the short-term effects and consequences of racism; while the other continues to experience its secondary and brutal effects up close and personal everyday.

What Venkatest's book demonstrates more than anything else is that insensitivity to what racism is doing, and has done to American humanity, is rapidly becoming the most obvious and enduring symbol of a very twisted American reality: an increasingly diminished, socially dead overly consummerized and commodified way of life, permanently deformed by a carefully hidden reliance on racism, and on racist denial.

It is easy enough for the reader to get side-tracked by the many colorful (and extremely funny) incidents of day-to-day gang life that the author describes, including being a gang leader for a day - where he discovered that the job itself was no walk in the park. But there are no heroes in either this story, or that told by Gary Webb: only the exposure of a villainous systemic form of corruption, the distribution and selling of crack cocaine. It is difficult if not impossible to ignore the larger tableau, which paints graphically, a much larger and darker, much more disturbing, much more sinister, more socially twisted and grotesque, intentional, passive-aggressive, and mean-spirited picture of a culture of neglect by one of the richest but domestically most socially insensitive and socially negligent and uncaring nations in the world.

What is even more disturbing, (than the incidents in the book are colorful and funny), is that everything that happens in the "dystopia of the Robert Taylor projects" is happening in the black part of every other inner city in America. Professor Venkatesh's book demonstrates that American culture is becoming a checkerboard of "black dystopias" interlaced within "white utopias" and as my new best friend P.K Ryan would say: that appears to be the way America wants it. Period: beginning and end of the American racial story.

However, disturbing, this is the way good sociology should be done: methodologically clean, pulling no punches, and close to the ground. I have already bought Professor Venkatesh's two other books. Five stars.

I finished reading this book over one weekend--putting it down only for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Author Venkatesh took a very big risk in this venture into the "other" world; I think he was very lucky to connect with the gang leader JT who himself had some college education. This vital connection was a valuable "shield" for him, but for which he himself would have become a statistic very early in the venture. I hope this work will open the eyes of sociologists in formulating strategies for redeeming the unfortunate kids who fall into this trap of "easy money." May God bless you, Venkatesh. Keep up the good work!

I've never bought the myth that sociologists are neutral, disinterested observers of other people's cultures. That's a key part of the appeal I find in this book: Venkatesh is bluntly honest about his own naivete, and his own "hustling" to get what he needed from the people in the projects he studied. He recognized he's no disinterested observer.

He also recognizes the interest the people he studies have in outside recognition, and the impact his presence has on others--one sequence toward the end is shockingly naive--but Venkatesh doesn't censor information that cast a bad light on himself, or hide the negative impact he had on people's lives. In other words, he's no Margaret Mead--and that's all to the good. This should be required reading for anyone who wants to go into sociology.

He's blunt about the 3rd-world-esque corruption in Chicago and about police corruption, which should be familiar to residents of any big city with open eyes. He's also blunt about the ineptness of the Chicago Housing Authority. He also shows how people in bad circumstances display ingenuity and selflessness to make the best of a bad situation.

The saddest portion of this story is the fate of people who, had they been born elsewhere (or let's face it, been born white), would've been on a one-way express ticket to the top.

I am a graduate student in Sociology and received my BA in the same from Berkeley. I bought this book because I was trained by another sociologist who did extensive work on gangs and I was interested in comparing the two. As this is a sociological book, I expected the introduction to layout methodology and detail how the author dealt with this kind of fieldwork. I also expected to find some connection to sociology. This book is more like a novel than an academic work and I am quite disconcerted that it has gotten such positive attention.

For a graduate student, which Venkatesh was at the start of his project, to not understand that a sociological researcher is not covered by the First Amendment is startling. I learned this in my sociological methods classes as an undergraduate, how could he make it four years into his research before W.J. Wilson informs him he could be legally liable for watching illegal activities? Further, the continued use of deception in this research is ethically problematic as well. To allow J.T. to even partially believe that Venkatesh was writing a biography places the researcher in an ethical dilemma - one that Venkatesh minimally addresses. Venkatesh would have done well to address this issue, as well as issues of his personal biases (he comes from a privileged background), reliability and validity - all of which are important to a sociological book.

Finally, Venkatesh makes a patently false claim. At the end of the book when talking to J.T., Venkatesh states that there has never been an inter-city study of gangs that would allow for comparison across region. THIS IS FALSE. Martin Sanchez-Jankowski of U.C. Berkeley wrote "Islands in the Street" after spending ten years conducting participant observation research on gangs ALL ACROSS THE U.S. Sanchez-Jankowski's book is still in print and for Venkatesh to not even know about its existence indicates that he did little other research to go along with his field work. If he had conducted a literature review, this book would have been known to him. I believe that the heading "A Rogue Sociologist Takes to The Streets" is simply a grandiose self-reference designed to sell books. If you are truly interested in learning about gangs, check out "ISLANDS IN THE STREET."

Amazing book! The only one I've ever taken the time to formally review on Amazon. Sudhir's book captures the poverty in America on the ground -- but I wonder if he'll do a follow-up detailing the implications of advanced technology (internet, cell phones, social networking sites) on the gang/drug scene. Fantastic read!! And I totally think JT's portrayed so vividly, it might as well be his semi-biography.

Francesca

In 'Gang Leader for a Day', Sudhir Venkatesh goes, and stays, where few (if any) sociologists have gone before - Chicago's Robert Taylor housing projects. The book reveals many fascinating angles to life in the projects that an outsider would most likely be ignorant to: the surprising fact that gangs serve many more functions within their communities than simply dealing drugs and shooting people; the disproportionate amount of power and influence yielded by building presidents in the projects; and the many innovative, sometimes depressing, ways that people with nothing find to get by. Anyone who has read 'Freakonomics' will be vaguely familiar with Sudhir's work, and fans of that book will enjoy this. The title is actually a relatively minor component of the book, so don't expect 300 pages devoted to a single day. The story sucks you in, and I would imagine most people with even a fleeting interest in the sociology or economics of grinding urban poverty will have a difficult time putting it down.

Rarely, am I so captivated by a book that I will read it from start to finish in a few days (I typically read dozens of books at the same time and most are rarely finished). This book read very similar to the books by Alex Kotlowitz and Jonathan Kozol, but the economics behind how people live in impoverished communities was something neither Kozol nor Kotlowitz touched on. While the book left me torn in that it was always victim, victim, victim (even though the residents said never say that), I felt as if that was the theme. I, too, have done fieldwork and the bonds you create after spending a large chunk of your life with your study group can never be broken. However, where I did my fieldwork (rural Kenya) and where Dr. Venkatesh did his fieldwork were vastly different places. It is hard for me to understand how he can be so sympathetic toward his study subjects because regardless of the history of poverty and race relations in this country, we do have limitless opportunites compared to the developing world. That said, I, like the author, would do anything in my power to return and help my study group. I think bonds such as this create a loyalty that only the researcher can understand. Finally, I have to say that I'm slightly jealous. I would have loved to have done fieldwork such as this either in Chicago or to study the organized crime groups in Kenya, which fascinate me. Unfortunately, I am not so naive to believe a woman could infiltrate these groups. That said, I have also been priveleged to hear many stories in rural areas that would never dare be told to men.

This book is definitely an interesting read, particularly if you are not from the wrong side of the tracks. For most middle and upper class readers, I believe this is an insightful and voyueristic view of the lives that are so often forgotten about in this country.
Having grown up on the wrong side of the tracks and having lived in the projects for a time, I found myself deeply conflicted by the author's portrayal of others and himself. In the end he is only somewhat honest with himself about being the biggest hustler of all in the book. How exactly do you eat people's food and sit on their couches and follow them around for six years and in the end say you weren't even friends? Is this simply artificial distance inserted to make himself seem more scholarly, or does he really feel this way about the people who greatly contributed to his career? He tries to distinguish himself from the very people he interacted with and at times participated in morally questionable behavior with by describing himself as dressing appropriately for an Ivy League professor while returning to visit the ghetto. This description of himself at the end of the book brought home sharply to me the reality that most people will take a look at this world, like the author, and then put it down and walk away from the very real needs that real Americans have and it left me frustrated and angry. For every person who makes it out, there are hundreds left behind and most people are unwilling or unable to do anything except close a book and forget. I highly question that anything will be done as a result of this work to significantly improve impoverished Americans' situations, a view that the author confirms.
For all of the conflicting statements about various individuals moral choices in the book, the real heroes are the people who are trying to make the best of a bad situation. J.T., the drug dealer who gave the author the unprecendented access, reflects the true complexity of his environment and the ways in which people rationalize what they have to do in order to make a life for their families. And in many ways all of the people who spoke with and participated in the author's journey through American poverty reflect the same principles and values that the rest of America have. We all make choices and do what we have to do to get by, no matter how cultured we pretend to be.
So while I am frustrated by the author's need to distinguish himself from the people who shared so much with him, I hope that this book makes people think about the people around them and the very real suffering that occurs in our own country. I know from having lived in a place not to far removed from what the author describes, I cannot turn away and forget. While other people see a middle class girl now, in many ways I will never be separated from that life and I know that even this book does not begin to address the long-term difficulties involved in irradicating poverty in this country. And the main reason for this is in this book: you can leave the projects, but it never really leaves you and thus many people end up back there no matter how hard they work to get out.
Gangleader for a day, therefore, should represent a reality check for America, especially as our economy slows.

The inner city projects are truly a self-contained and self-protective community. I didn't realize this until I read this amazing book. This will give you a lot to talk about in your bookclub. Well-written and very interesting, I truly cared about the characters in the book.

I picked up this book expecting it to be solely about infiltrating a gang. Instead, I learned about all the different people living in the "projects" (gangs, tenants, prostitutes, vagrants, et al) and how they interact amongst themselves, their community (the housing authority, local shop owners and police) and those few outsiders (child services, reporters and politicians) that dare to enter their world.
After reading this book I learned more about those people than any facts and figures could show... and that is one thing the author was trying to show.
If you only want to read about gangs, drugs and violence, then this is not the book for you.

Very few facts and figures. I know barely more about exactly how gangs work than before I read the book. For example -
where do they get the drugs, how much do they charge, what are the mechanics of supplying the customers etc etc.

I can't believe Venkatesh spent over 6 years on this.

Way too thin.

Great Book,
I grew up in Chicago although not in the projects. But I was familar with Robert Taylor and Cabrni Green. This book was very insightful and believable. I had always heard stories about the projects and how even the police would not go there. Now it appears that those stories were true. Mr. Venkatesh is either crazy or very brave I havn't made up my mind on that one yet.

Sudhir Venkatesh has created a clear, intimate account of the social politics of the Black urban underclass. His account strikes a good balance between a warm, humane narrative and a neutral observer's perspective. The reader will begin to understand how this subculture makes sense, why it operates the way it does, and how middle class assumptions obfuscate it's validity, decency.
The book also holds a nice account of the ethnographic process, it's strengths, problems and pitfalls. Writing style is a bit slow or halting, but the interesting subject matter pulls the reader through from page to page.

I read Freakonomics, and was interested in the chapter about "the Sociologist that studied urban gangs" so much, that I purchased this book.

Seeing the Urban environment through the author's eyes, an Indian American, is a unique perspective. I enjoyed his journey through the myriad of informal and formal institutions: The Gangs, Housing Authority, Law Enforcement, and etc.

I expected more of the analysis,keen observations, and eye opening truths based on data that I read in Freakonmics. This book did not have much of this at all.

Sudhir wrote an exciting book complete with drama, compassion, empathy, and, yes, I dare say it, love of his subjects. I learned a great deal about the struggles of the urban poor Black folk in Chicago from this book. I fanticized about winning huge amounts of money which I could use to build a special school for the children of the projects. I wanted so much to reach out and assure that they would grow up healthy, safe, and well educated. That would be at least a start for them. Yes, many of them were earning their livings, such as they were, from dealing crack, but I couldn't help rooting for them.
Keep up the good work Sudhir, and write that biography for J.T. You owe it to him! This is a 5 star book in my mind! Mary Keller

With the precision of a brilliant sociologist, and the compassion and attention to detail of a novelist, Sudhir Venkatesh has brought to life the story of his time studying the residents and drug gangs of Chicago's notorious Robert Taylor Homes. Far from mere "representations" of larger sociological concepts, the people Sudhir meets and hangs out with are three dimensional human characters with hopes and dreams, base desires and foibles, and the capability to rise above their circumstances to grasp the big picture and life's big questions.

Deeply moving, and more gripping than most novels I've read, Gang Leader for a Day is not just a sociology of the urban poor, or even a story about the projects. It's the story of the human condition. For the first time we hear a researcher connect with his subjects on a truly human level, recognizing the humanity inherenet in all of us. By the end of his journey, Sudhir learns that despite differences in status, income, and background, we are all hustlers. Some of us hustle drugs and prostitutes in the projects and others hustle data and big ideas in academia. The end goal is the same: a sane, orderly existence in an insane and disorderly world.

I bought this book as I always had a curiosity about that group of buildings across the street from Comiskey Park. Growing up in the south suburbs, I always wondered what exactly went on at these places, driving by on my way downtown or to Hyde Park the Robert Taylor homes always looked like a war zone. This book is remarkably well written, and was certainly enlightening about life in the projects. The story of J.T., Mrs. Bailey, and the Black Kings is fascinating- especially as the ghetto economy is concerned. I was expecting a lot of bleeding-heart liberalism from the pages of this book but I was pleasantly surprised by the objectivity presented. Instead I found an author who may be insanely fearless, at least from the perspective that he would risk his life for his research cause. The relationships the author builds with the different parties is another fascinating part of the book. Overall, I found the book very gripping and difficult to put down. It certainly gave me a perspective I might not have otherwise had. Defnitely a good read- I would highly recommend it.

Venkatesh has written a truly remarkable book. This book is a great read and hard to put down. Really. I stayed up till dawn to finish it. It's like The Wire, but minus the cops, and real.

You can get the plot and basic ideas from other reviews. I've been a fan of his since I saw him give a job talk at Harvard when I was in graduate school many years ago. What should be made clear is that this book is more than very enjoyable. It is essential reading for ethnographers and sociologists.

Never has a qualitative researcher been so honest about research methods. As a fellow research, I can relate to this. The issues Venkatesh deals with are things we've all dealt with (well, maybe not to the same extreme). Through the chaos described in Gang Leader for a Day, the messy world of social-science research is made a little more understandable.

Reading Gang Leader for a Day, I felt as if I was reading the flipside of
Cop in the Hood. I knew the police side well; here's the side I always wanted to know.

Venkatesh claims he was far more naive than daring. No matter how naive, such work takes daring. I'm pretty daring. So the idea of simply walking into the Robert Taylor homes... well, it's simply incomprehensible. Maybe you have to be from Chicago to understand how ominous these looming towers were. No matter, Sudhir did it, and he provides insight into a world that outsiders normally only saw from TV or zooming past on the Dan Ryan Freeway.

Most ethnographies of gang life sound pretty much the same and most suffer from the same flaw -- they are written by people who are momentary interlopers and who are allowed only a superficial view of gang life (despite their usual claim to have unique access). This book represents something completely different and is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale research area. The author didn't just spend a few weeks with the gangs, but spent time with them over the course of more than 6 years. During that time he also had access to the mothers and extended family members of gangs, and he spent time with gang members across a wide range of levels in the gang hierarchy. This is a book that, once you start to read it you may have a difficult time putting it down. What I like most about the book is the author's appreciation for the complexity of social arrangements in the projects and the limitations of superficial quick fixes to the multitude of problems these residents face, and the multitude of problems these residents cause. I also appreciated the author's frequent reflections on his work -- Was he exploiting these people? Were they exploiting him? What are his legal and moral obligations if he sees someone being beaten or shot? He enters the setting about as naive as one can be but that works to his advantage for as his eyes are opened to the inner workings of this community, so are ours. Despite his lengthy period of observation he never pretends to have seen everything or to have been fully taken into the confidence of anyone. The reader quickly comes to appreciate just how difficult it is for an outsider to penetrate such a community, and how ignorant most of us are about how our policies might play out in such a place. All in all a remarkable work!

I really enjoyed reading this novel, and I think it was worth purchasing so I can reread it whenever I want. Sudhir Venkatesh uses a down to earth writing style that not only conveys his adventures in the projects, but I think adequately covers all the greater social causes and effects of poverty. After finishing, I'm not only inspired to learn more about poverty and gang culture, but I really want to visit Chicago. This is a must read for any one with a sociologist in them.

Exellent book, absolutely facinating and a true look into what its like in the hood

This book is as riveting an academic research report as you are ever likely to read.

In Freakonomics, many people were fascinated by a section that described how most crack cocaine dealers lived at home with their mothers. Why? They make less money than minimum wage. The source of that factoid was research conducted on site by Sudhir Venkatesh, author of Gang Leader for a Day, who describes in this book how he did that research and came to make decisions one day for part of the Black Kings gang in Chicago.

In the process of reading this book, you'll learn more than you ever expected to know about the ways that the poorest people support and protect themselves. You'll also find how drug-dealing gangs are both a help and a hindrance to the poor.

More powerfully, you'll be exposed to the great difficulties involved in observing the lives of the poor and the gangs that spring from them. The moral and ethical dilemmas this book presents are almost beyond belief.

Professor Venkatesh was a graduate student at the University of Chicago when his curiosity about the school's neighbors caused him to draft a questionnaire and head for the largest local housing project. Once there, he was detained by the gang whose territory he had invaded. Knowing nothing of gangs, he spent an uncomfortable night wondering what would happen to him. He piqued the curiosity of the gang's leader, J.T., and was granted ever widening access to the gang's activities and to the lives of those in their territory.

Take a close look at those who need help before deciding you know the answers.

I first heard about this book on a National Public Radio interview of the author. This book was everything I had hoped for and more. I feel I am very familiar with Chicago, (I drove a Yellow Cab in the 70's) so I was delighted with the chance to view a part of Chicago not in my experiance. I truly did not want to put the book down. Now I am going to read other works by Sudhir Venkatesh. Thank you so much!

To be clear this is a story *about* Sudhir and the people he meets while doing the research that you probably read (like I did) in Freakonomics.

It's a narrative, light on figures. It covers about '89 through '95 focusing on 3 or 4 major players in a single building in the projects. I enjoyed it and loan it out eagerly.

Sudhir did a great job immersing the reader into the world he lived in.

I took about 4-5 days to enjoy the book, at several hours a day, and when I would come home it felt like a pleasant treat was waiting for me every time. Imagine having an uncle tell you a long, detailed, fascinating story about an underground world you probably never knew much about, from his own first hand experience.

That's what it felt like. The rest you can gleam from other reviewers :)

Ishmael read writes (in his online zine, Konch):

"Within the last two years, two black male hosts at NPR were fired for being "cocky" and replaced by black women, who, according to maverick black critic, Joyce Joyce, are less threatening to Neo-Liberals than black men. Apparently, NPR doesn't want to offend its post race demographics and airs offensive productions like David Isay's notorious "Ghetto 101," which pushed the line that the problems of poor blacks are caused by their personal behavior. He put two black kids up to recording all of the ugly behavior they could locate in the Chicago projects, and when not finding some, encouraged them to make up some. So outraged were some black NPR staffers that they resigned. On Saturday, Jan.12, host Scott Simon's guest was Sudhir Venkatesh a Chicago sociologist, who's apparently decided that the ghetto

shouldn't just be a profit center for white men. His book is A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets.This creep gained the confidence of some gang leaders by deceiving them and, so like, David Isay's "Ghetto 101," he recorded the most disgusting aspects of life there for the entertainment of their NPR's Brie and Chablis audience. His depiction of brutal activities of a black gang, the sort of portrait that Julius Streicher painted of German minorities, and the kind exhibited in David Simon's money maker, "The Wire," had Scott Simon in stitches, he was laughing so hard. Venkatesh was laughing along with him. Scott Simon, like Dan Abrams (MSNBC Veep), has serious hang-ups about black people and gets to cash in on them.

Once you started with this book you will not be able to put it down again. Sometimes its hard to believe as someone living in Chicago that this things have been going on here 10 years ago or still do?

Ishmael read writes (in his online zine, Konch):

"Within the last two years, two black male hosts at NPR were fired for being "cocky" and replaced by black women, who, according to maverick black critic, Joyce Joyce, are less threatening to Neo-Liberals than black men. Apparently, NPR doesn't want to offend its post race demographics and airs offensive productions like David Isay's notorious "Ghetto 101," which pushed the line that the problems of poor blacks are caused by their personal behavior. He put two black kids up to recording all of the ugly behavior they could locate in the Chicago projects, and when not finding some, encouraged them to make up some. So outraged were some black NPR staffers that they resigned. On Saturday, Jan.12, host Scott Simon's guest was Sudhir Venkatesh a Chicago sociologist, who's apparently decided that the ghetto

shouldn't just be a profit center for white men. His book is A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets.This creep gained the confidence of some gang leaders by deceiving them and, so like, David Isay's "Ghetto 101," he recorded the most disgusting aspects of life there for the entertainment of their NPR's Brie and Chablis audience. His depiction of brutal activities of a black gang, the sort of portrait that Julius Streicher painted of German minorities, and the kind exhibited in David Simon's money maker, "The Wire," had Scott Simon in stitches, he was laughing so hard. Venkatesh was laughing along with him. Scott Simon, like Dan Abrams (MSNBC Veep), has serious hang-ups about black people and gets to cash in on them.

Ive been waiting to read this book since i read Freakonomics way back when it came out. The different viewpoints the author takes in this book are amazing... sudhir shows the viewpoint of the king drug dealer, his pawns, poor single mother police, and many more. to see the way that all of these viewpoint clash is both astounding as it is heartbreaking, and if you really want to have a picture of the street in your mind, read this book. I read it in less than a week and am sure most people have or will do the same, it's just that captivating.