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Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor

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Author: Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$17.95~~
Buy New: $12.21
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Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.2

ISBN: 0674030710
Dewey Decimal Number: 307
EAN: 9780674030718
ASIN: 0674030710

Publication Date: October 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 6-10 of 18

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1 2 3 4

Interesting July 8, 2007
0 out of 5 found this review helpful

This book is an easy read and very informative. A lot of things you know already if you even grew up close to a city with an urban center, and you can relate this to a lot of cities other than Chicago. The author is a little long winded, but you'll understand why when you read the book.

2 out of 5 stars

A tedious 382 pages July 7, 2007
7 out of 18 found this review helpful

Mr. Venkatesh obviously immersed himself in the daily life of the urban poor, and certainly has an interesting five page journal article here, unfortunately he also has an addional382 pages of tedious, repetitive anecdotes from his time interviewing the urban poor. After reading a story about someone illegally repairing a car in an alley for the 100th time (probably not an exaggeration) you start to feel like you are not really getting the full scope of the story. br /br /The limited use of any facts or survey data make this book less useful than it could have been if it were not so focused on anecdotes with little contextual data.

3 out of 5 stars

The Author Needs to Prioritize May 29, 2007
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh has the potencial for a really good book here, but he mucks it up by switching back and forth between being an objective social scientist reporting his findings and a sympathetic visitor to the urban American slum. His digressions into obscure and arcane points of academic theory interrupt the narrative flow and make the book a tedious read at times.br /br /With that minor quibble stated however, Off the Books is a very enlightening survey of the seemingly intractable problems facing the population of America's ghettos. I highly recommend it to the people who promote laissez-faire economic policies as a cure-all for urban social pathologies.br /

5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic May 3, 2007
0 out of 5 found this review helpful

I thought Off the Books was fascinating and well written. I've recommended it to many people.

4 out of 5 stars

Fascinating, with problems April 18, 2007
8 out of 10 found this review helpful

br /This book is about the illicit or "shady" economic activity of people living in "Maquis Park", a poor black neighborhood in Chicago's Southside. The activities Venkatesh includes range from otherwise legitimate enterprises such as auto repair or lunch preparation and delivery performed without proper licensing and permits (and often on public property) to barter of services or products to employing workers (often temporary) off the books to clear illegalities such as drug and gun sales, prostitution, protection rackets and loan sharking. br /br /Venkatesh spent years studying and hanging out in Maquis Park, even participating in the shady economy there, and he provides exhaustive anecdotal description of what he observed. The individual stories and observations are fascinating (if perhaps a bit repetitious). Several other reviewers have described the book in some detail. br /br /But several factors lead me to reduce and otherwise five star rating to four. First, there does not seem to be any overarching synthesis, any theory developed from the data, beyond some general observations as to the residents' resilience. [The one exception that struck me was that Venkatesh does emphasize that the economic calculus within the community is very different from that taught in college classes or employed in the corporate world, and effects the choices made in ways that make sense in context, but may seem pathological to outside commentators.] In particular, there is little comparison with the (underground) economies of poor communities of other ethnicity in inner cities, nor among the rural poor, nor even in working class and suburban neighborhoods (think how many roofers, gardeners or other contractors will give a special rate for cash, or employ workers of unclear documentation). This would be a bit less annoying if Venkatesh did not seem to speak as if his experience, his studied community, were universal, "the" poor. br /br /And the writing. Sometimes it seems hard to find a page without some awkwardness, typo, or simple careless writing which should have been edited. My favorite has to be on page 89, "In suburban ... communities ... there are fewer people per capita...." Er, fewer people per person? Then on page 92, among the variety of "in-kind payments" offered for car repair, he includes "a few have an installment plan" (if they're paying *money* on the installment plan it's not in-kind). Page 111, "supplies, such as ... cleaning services". Then in one paragraph, on page 120, Venkatesh writes (a) "A single individual owns 75 percent of the stores" when he means 75 percent of the stores are owned by individuals, not that one person owns a whole mess of stores, (b) refers to "the 'glass ceiling' that has prevented women from entering the halls of corporate America" [that would be a 'glass wall', wouldn't it?] and (c) "although ... there are a few women who own ... stores ... they are few in number." [Well, 'a few' would be 'few in number', wouldn't it?] Call me a grump, but this kind of writing brings me to a squelching halt, repeatedly, while I figure out what he's trying to say, or just mutter a 'tsk tsk'. Surely Harvard U Press could hire an English grad student at a few bucks an hour to read this stuff. br /br /In sum, lots of good stuff in this book, but diminished by some flaws.

Copyright 2007 White Hat Communications.
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