High-Risers

October 16, 2017
In his first book, journalist Austen surveys the development and demise of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing project through the stories of four African-American residents who lived there at various points in their lives, beginning in the 1950s and up until the building’s demolition in 2011. Together their stories span the tenures of 10 mayors and illustrate Cabrini-Green residents’ slide into overwhelming poverty, as well as the disintegration of the community and the rise of crime there, exemplified in the shooting of two policemen, James Severin and Anthony Rizzato, in 1970, and the shooting of seven-year-old Dantrell Davis in 1992. Cabrini-Green—and particularly its demolition—has been the subject of much media attention; Austen examines that treatment in newspaper accounts, as well as in several films and documentaries, which by and large perpetuate a one-dimensional view of the horrors of inner-city life. Austen is an expert on his subject, and the narrative at times feels bloated with an excess of his experience and research. Nevertheless, urban planners in particular will find this an instructive guide, or, perhaps more importantly, a cautionary tale about a failed attempt to provide affordable housing for the poor.

December 1, 2017

In his first book, journalist Austen (Harper's, the Atlantic) traces the birth, life, and death of one of America's most notorious public housing projects: the Cabrini-Green towers and row houses of Chicago's Near North Side. Constructed in the 1940s and 1950s as a New Deal solution to Chicago's overcrowded tenements, Cabrini-Green was intended for carefully screened working-class families. Initially integrating many different races, the neighborhood quickly became predominantly African American. Never adequately funded, Cabrini-Green's structural needs were soon neglected and it became housing of last resort for the city's poor. By the 1980s, Cabrini-Green was a national symbol of entrenched poverty, gang violence, and community neglect. In 2010, the towers were forcibly emptied and demolition began. Austen's intimate portrait of the neighborhood follows individual residents from the halcyon days of sparkling new construction and optimism to the final hours before demolition. He draws on interviews with residents, staff, and public-housing experts, as well as contemporary news coverage, popular culture, and secondary literature. VERDICT The focus on personal stories raises more questions than it answers about the historical and political reasons behind Chicago's disinvestment in public housing. Nevertheless, this is a finely crafted biography of an urban community.--Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Massachusetts Historical Soc.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2017
The life, death, and diaspora of an American community.In a book that is part sociological study and part oral history, longtime journalist Austen takes a deep dive into the story of Cabrini-Green, an iconic American public housing project in Chicago. At its peak in the 1950s and '60s, Cabrini-Green was home to more than 3,600 families, predominantly African-American, "two-parent, working-class, and desperately in need of adequate housing." The author covers the relevant cultural, sociological, and political aspects of a place known as one of the "scariest black places in America." He also captures the flash points of the block's history, including the shooting of two policemen in 1970, the fatal shooting of a 7-year-old in 1992, and a brutal attack on 9-year-old "Girl X" in 1997. Admirably, Austen humanizes his story by telling it through the eyes of a handful of Cabrini-Green residents, including Dolores Wilson, a janitor's wife who became a political activist; Annie Ricks, who lived most of her life in Cabrini-Green; and J.R. Fleming, a peddler of counterfeit goods who learned to fight the injustice around him. "Reflecting on J.R.'s personal transformation, [a plainclothes cop] joked that his colleagues on the police force had messed up," writes the author. "They should have left the young man alone when he was just peddling DVDs and tube socks: 'Now they went and woke him up.' " Cabrini-Green is gone now, wiped out by a sweeping urban renewal program that demolished "every remaining public housing family high-rise, knocking down some 18,000 units." So Austen covers the diaspora, too, as an island of poverty was wiped from existence by white prosperity. It's a somewhat overstuffed history, but the author provides many powerful insights. As Dolores told her brother when offered an exit from Cabrini-Green, "I'm in the projects, but that's my home. I love my home just like you love your home."A weighty and robust history of a people disappeared from their own community.

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