The Ville, St. Louis, Missouri (Black America Series) Book

Social justice discourse in the United States, at least in white activist circles, often conflates race and class. Consequently, some phenomena such as gentrification, segregation, and displacement tend to be discussed along exclusively racial lines. This book provides an excellently clear case study in these distinctions not aligning.

Pattillo discusses the arrival of the black middle class in an neighborhood of Chicago that had formerly been the single poorest in the city. Many of the tensions discussed here---regarding public housing, school choice, and the role of police---are the sort that are still most often discussed in racial terms. In this book, they're class terms, because the neighborhood remains entirely black even as it gentrifies. As a white person, it's valuable for me to know how much split of opinion there is in such matters even among the black community. Pattillo's treatment of the issues is very clear and digestible, providing a wealth of context for each of these debates and what the stakes were for everyone.

Her overarching thesis is the role of the black middle class as "middlemen" between the black lower-class and the white ruling class. However, I would have liked to hear more about broader academic discussions of gentrification, and where her text fits into debates involving interracially gentrifying neighborhoods, whether in Chicago or elsewhere. Without that comparison, it becomes harder to separate out racial and class-based issues.