Professor Brooks's blog

Having problems downloading the reading for Monday?

Deborah tells me that Blackboard is having sporadic outages today. If you have problems downloading the reading for Monday, let me know; I'll e-mail it to you. I can't post it because it takes up too much space. 

More on racial steering

 In order to illuminate this issue, I found a few more recent articles from the NY Times that discuss how "racial steering" works and why it's not simply a realtor taking into account buyers' and renters' assumed preferences:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E2DF1131F932A35756C0A9639C8B63

More on Chinatown's development from Peter Kwong

 Last year, Peter Kwong (the author of today's readings) answered reader questions in the New York Times online. I'm posting this link because it helps us understand how the processes he described have shifted since he published his book (1987). For example, he notes that competition from China has almost killed the garment industry in Chinatown. He also discusses the continued gentrification of the area and his belief that Chinatown will eventually cease to exist.

Photos of the prewar shtetl

I mentioned in class that I recently read a fascinating New York Times Magazine piece about the photographer Roman Vishniac, who made his name photographing prewar Jewish communities in Europe before the Nazis destroyed them. It turns out, however, that his photos were not really what they seemed:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/magazine/04shtetl-t.html

Interesting online Brooklyn articles

I mentioned these links in class a few days ago. Some of them deal with aspects of gentrification in Brooklyn, while one is a discussion of the subway's importance to NYC's development. You might find them interesting and also relevant to our class project:

http://www.observer.com/2008/brooklyn-borough-2

http://www.observer.com/2008/brooklyn-borough-thinning-blue-line-brownst...

http://www.observer.com/2008/brooklyn-borough-16

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