The New American Ghetto [Hardcover]

Camilo Jose Vergara (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Vergara has chronicled life in poor and minority communities across the United States in the New York Times, Atlantic, the Nation, the Village Voice, and other publications. Following in the footsteps of 19th-century urban reformer Jacob Riis, the author, through the power of photography, reveals the destitution and vulgarities of urban decay. Chicago; Newark, New Jersey; New York; Detroit; Los Angeles; and several other cities are the backdrops for his 400 photographs. Vergara focuses on the physical environment, showing the transformation of particular sites over time. His tour of dilapidated neighborhoods and crumbling downtowns is visually startling. Vergara lays bare the direction of a new urbanness that strips the grandeur from its fabric and lays waste to the cityscape, pointing out that while we have wasted cities, many of the ruins are magnificent. An invaluable resource for urban studies and architecture collections.
Michael A. Lutes, Univ. of Notre Dame Lib., Ind.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Unchanging statistics about life in U.S. ghettos, Vergara argues, hide something quite new: the "crystallization of an urbanism tolerant of ever greater inequality." Chilean-born Vergara began photographing American ghettos when he was a Notre Dame undergraduate; he continued while earning a master's degree in sociology at Columbia University. The 9,000-plus slides he has produced since 1977 document the physical changes ghettos--" as intrinsic to the identity of the United States as New England villages, vast national parks, and leafy suburbs" --have experienced. Vergara has explored the meaning of these changes in such publications as the Nation, the Atlantic, Architectural Record, and the New York Times and in gallery, museum, and university exhibitions; his work has also been the subject of a BBC documentary. The New American Ghetto focuses on ghetto geography and ecology, examining over time specific cities' cityscapes, housing, commerce and industry, and defensive fortifications, as well as gentrification, NIMBY phenomena, the effects of homelessness and drugs, and the images--in ghetto homes, on abandoned buildings' walls, and in fortified neighborhoods' streets--that assert the humanity of these shattered communities' residents. Vivid and troubling; an essential acquisition. Mary Carroll

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 255 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (November 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813522099
• ISBN-13: 978-0813522098
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 9.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,151,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving pictorial of America's abandoned cities, April 25, 2002

By 

Jeffrey Jotz "You'll know him when you find him" (Rahway, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The New American Ghetto (Paperback)

Vergara looks at some major American industrial cities that suffered some horrible disinvestment after World War II. He takes an honest look at the people and buildings in some of America's poorest cities (Camden, Newark, Detroit) and how ugly, cheap, security-conscious and modernistic buildings to serve the ghetto's poor residents have replaced fantastic movie palaces, upscale housing and fading remnants of a wealthier, more egalitarian period in U.S. history.

Vergara's prose gets a bit preachy and predictable at times, but the real strength in this book lies in its collection of bleak photos that make you wonder why this nation abandoned its industrial past so quickly and so thoroughly. They speak more than any words can ever do on the plight of America's cities.

He shines when he looks at how buildings transform over time - some for better, most for worse. The majority of these photos were taken in the early-1990s, as the crack epidemic was at its peak and the double-digit decline in urban crime was just beginning. With crime down and the urban real estate market up, I view these decade-old photos with a mix of sadness and hope.

Vergara's later work, _American Ruins_ does an even better job of looking at how the United States has turned its collective back on its cities. If you read this book, make sure you check out _American Ruins_. They both make Vergara our best chronicler of urban decay.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life in places unexpected..., February 4, 2003

By 

A. Ort "aorto" (Youngstown, Ohio) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The New American Ghetto (Paperback)

The photographs in this book are gripping. While the narrative is interesting regarding the sociology of the rise (and fall) of the ghetto in several American cities, what is most stunning about this book, perhaps obviously, are the photographs.

How many of us have driven by abandoned or decaying buildings and have either reminisced or have wondered about its history? I think most of us have experienced this. Vergara has captured those moments on film. Yet his interests and the style of his photographs reveal life bursting, or seeping, from behind the apparent emptiness and abandonment. Snippets of conversations or ponderings from those who live in the neighborhoods photographed and quotes from various 'experts' give a framework through which the photographs reveal what is behind the facade.

Graffiti reveals insight and inspiration. And there are various characters outside of the mainstream who find meaning and life in what those who have abandoned these buildings called 'decay'. An intinerant preacher, a modern day Noah and her ark and a whole host of other individuals reveal to us that no matter what it looks like on the outside, there is a spark in all of us that hopes and dreams and envisions a better tomorrow.

This book succeeds on many levels, a sociological level, a picturesque level, a historical level and, most important in my opinion, a human level. It's a book you can peruse over and over again and find something new with each visit.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a humane and compelling view of something we want to ignore, October 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The New American Ghetto (Paperback)

Slums and ghettos are places that most Americans would care to ignore, but Vergara documents these marginalized "communities" with a personal sincerity and social awareness not often found in this field of study. Those who are involved in bringing back to life the urban cores of American cities would be well-advised to study this book and ponder deeply the author's conclusions. I bought this book today, on a whim, and read it in one sitting. I could not put it down. I'd like to see more works by Mr. Vergara.