MANAGED INTEGRATION: The Dilemma of Doing Good in the City

by Harvey Molotch ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 15, 1972

Another product of the University of Chicago Sociology Department's preoccupation with the hows and whys of Chicago neighborhood changes from white to black. Molotch has processed yards of data on what the real estate interests are doing, who comprises the local community betterment associations, racial turnover rates in schools, shops and housing, rent differentials between whites and blacks (blacks pay a third more), the clergy's attempts to get community benefits from City Hall, and barroom sociology about how blacks talk and walk differently from whites. Molotch uncritically ingests the views and information supplied by his survey-interview informants; as he explains, ""My foremost methodological concern was to come up with something significant or interesting."" There is tacit acceptance of the legitimacy of the South Shore Commission's Tenant Referral Service, which screens prospective incomers to keep out ""undesirables."" The ""doing good"" referred to in the subtitle reduces itself to the very premises of the South Shore Commission: achieving integration of ""the right kind"" of people of both races. Summarily Molotch touches the more fundamental problem: ""By providing enough good housing to blacks, the major requisite condition for residential integration would be achieved."" This question might have made a more significant study -- certainly it would have demanded a more penetrating method.

Pub Date: Jan. 15, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Univ. of California Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1972

Categories: NONFICTION