Norman Street: Poverty and Politics in an Urban Neighborhood, Updated Edition - Tapa blanda

The original edition of Norman Street painted a gripping and moving portrait of a mid-1970s NYC neighborhood under assault. At that time, neither Susser nor the residents of Greenpoint-Williamsburg could imagine that the combination of regulation and neglect they were enduring was a precursor of the much larger and more devastating global project of neoliberalism. This reissued and updated edition, with Susser's compelling new introduction, offers a moving and instructive time-trip, transporting us back to a key moment in the struggle for livable urban neighborhoods. (Jane Collins, University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Blending fine-grain ethnography with superb political economic analysis, Susser's Norman Street is a classic of urban social science. It gives a vivid picture of the economic ingredients, social struggles, and demographic change that set the stage for a hipsterized Williamsburg and transformed Greenpoint. A paradigm of neighborhood ethnography in a global context. (Neil Smith, author of New Urban Frontier)

Norman Street is the first serious examination of a scenario that appears likely to be played out again and again as federal budget policies result in reduced services for urban areas across the country. Based on a three-year study conducted in Brooklyn's Greenpoint/Williamsburg section, the book is an in-depth, detailed description of life in a multi-ethnic working class neighborhood during New York City's fiscal crisis of 1975-78. Now updated with a new introduction to address the changes and events of the thirty years since the book's original publication, its lessons continue to demonstrate the impact of political and economic changes on everyday lives.

Relating local events to national policy, Susser deals directly with issues and problems that face industrial cities nationwide: ethnic and race relations are analyzed within the context of community organization and local politics; the impact of landlord/tenant relations, housing discrimination, and red-lining are examined; and the effects on the urban poor of gentrification are documented. Since neighborhood issues are often of primary concern to women, much of the book concerns the role of women as community organizers and their integration of this role with domestic responsibilities.