"If white-black conflicts are no longer the most salient, what are the main lines of enmity and alliance? Several social scientists are helping to make sense of the emerging landscape of race and politics in the contemporary American city, where the old social divisions have been reconfigured. Their work reveals that gentrification is still contested and economic development does not end up benefiting everyone, but predicting the winners and losers is getting harder. Minorities may be on the winning side more often than not."
-Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh-
Venkatesh, professor of sociology and African-American studies at Columbia University and author of "Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor," examines the new politics of urban gentrification through work by William Julius Wilson, Lance Freeman and Mary Patillo. Read the article "Urban Puzzle" here.