Notes from the Crack Trade

Long before Venkatesh arrived, Chicago's police had decided that the 4,400 apartments in the projects where Venkatesh conducted his research were too dangerous to patrol. Ninety percent of the adults there were on welfare, and there were just two social-service centers for nearly 20,000 children. The buildings themselves were falling apart, with at least a half dozen deaths caused by plunging elevators. Into that vacuum stepped the Black Kings and other gangs, making their money not just by selling drugs, but also by engaging in extortion, gambling, prostitution and countless other black-market schemes. "It was outlaw capitalism, and it ran hot," he writes.

Over time, though, Venkatesh begins to understand the interplay of politics and economics that keep the housing project operating despite the absence of city services. As one high-ranking gang member tells him, "we are a community organization, responding to people's needs." Venkatesh doesn't go that far, but does acknowledge the game is not all about power and money, as he professes in the first chapter. "In these poor circumstances, people sometimes turn to a gang for basic services," Venkatesh says. "There was no government, so the gang would help maintain the apartments. There was no security, so the gang provided escorts for the elderly. And residents hated that, but they had no choice."

Still, only the ultrahigh-ranking gang lords get rich. Low-level dealers barely make minimum wage, and many end up in jail or dead before they have the chance to move up. J.T., when Venkatesh meets him, makes about $30,000 a year, though he later makes much more. The irony, says Venkatesh now, is that J.T.—who put away his drug money and eventually left the gang—makes minimum wage in the legal market once again, helping his family with a number of businesses. Which brings us to the very question Venkatesh poses at the beginning of the book: to what do we owe our sources? "[Not] a day goes by where I'm not conscious of the ways I've made my career selling poverty," Venkatesh tells NEWSWEEK. "But ultimately, I think the best thing I can do is keep poverty on the map."

© 2008