A Haven and a Hell

March 4, 2019
In this informative sociohistorical analysis, Freeman (There Goes the Hood), a professor of urban planning, traces the history of northern “ghettos”—predominantly black urban neighborhoods—to reveal the ghetto’s complicated place in U.S. society. He argues that, from their beginnings in the segregated neighborhoods in northern cities, ghettos have both been places for community and the advancement of African Americans’ fortunes, and also riddled with poverty, overcrowding, and other problems. Through the Great Migration, white flight, and federally sanctioned redlining all the way to urban renewal, the subprime mortgage crisis, gentrification, and mass incarceration, Freeman tracks the forces that have shaped ghettos, never forgetting the agency of black Americans in shaping their own environments. The Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s; a nationwide outpouring of support for black congressmen in the 1950s; and even black gentrifiers today demonstrate the ghetto’s importance in advancing the role of black Americans in politics, business, and the arts. While Freeman belabors the haven-hell dichotomy, obscuring some of the complexities of his argument, his impressive array of primary sources (he makes excellent use of letters to prominent black newspapers) combines well with an assortment of peer-reviewed research from various fields. For readers of urban history and black history, this is an excellent look at the ghetto’s multifaceted place in American history.