New issue of City of Community features symposium on the ghetto

The latest issue of the journal City and Community (December 2008 ) features several articles that explore analytic assumptions, international perspectives, and new directions in the study of communities commonly referred to as ghettos. In one of the pieces, “Four Reasons to Abandon the Idea of ‘The Ghetto,’” Mario Small questions the common use of the concept “the ghetto” to theorize conditions in poor, predominantly black urban neighborhoods in the United States. He argues, among other things, that poor black neighborhoods differ dramatically from place to place in their organizational density, the number of banks, childcare centers, pharmacies, and other everyday organizations.

Papers in the symposium:

The Ghetto: Origins, History, Discourse (p 347-352)
Bruce Haynes, Ray Hutchison

Involuntary Segregation and the Ghetto: Disconnecting Process and Place (p 353-357)
Herbert J. Gans

A Century of Harlem in New York City: Some Notes on Migration, Consolidation, Segregation, and Recent Developments (p 358-365)
Andrew A. Beveridge

Barrio Geneology (p 366-371)
Diego Vigil

From the Outside Looking in: A “European” Perspective on the Ghetto (p 372-377)
Talja Blokland

Enclaves, Condominiums, and Favelas: Where Are the Ghettos in Brazil? (p 378-383)
Circe Monteiro

Reconsidering the “Ghetto”¹ (p 384-388 )
Anmol Chaddha, William Julius Wilson

Four Reasons to Abandon the Idea of “The Ghetto” (p 389-398 )
Mario Luis Small

City and Community Volume 7, Number 4, December 2008