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House by House, Block by Block: The Rebirth of America's Urban Neighborhoods

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House by House, Block by Block tells the stories of how urban neighborhood revitalization happened in five cities across America. Alexander Von Hoffman, an historian and specialist in housing and urban affairs and senior research fellow at Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, takes his readers on a journey across America from east to west and describes how neighborhoods fall into decline as well as how they rise back up from the ashes of blight and devastation. The histories of neighborhoods in New York, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, and Los Angeles are revealed through a series of case studies about specific neighborhoods in those cities. The case studies were developed from personal interviews, census data, private publications, and newspaper articles. Each chapter dissects the rebirth of neighborhoods beginning with the causes of decline, identifying and describing the people who facilitated the transformations, how the revitalization began on the street, and ends with a summary of lessons learned from that particular case. Overall, the book takes a comprehensive look at how change happens and who makes it happen. This book should be read by everyone interested in a step by step outline of how neighborhoods change and how neighborhood change leads to the revitalization of entire cities.

House by House, Block by Block provides a kind of "organizational chart" of how neighborhoods change in different circumstances. Each case study is centered on the people in the neighborhoods who make and are affected by revitalization. Von Hoffman's use of storytelling entices readers, pulls them into the situation, and personalizes each cast study. The author discusses politics in a realistic and candid manner and does not hold back criticisms or compliments of politicians or public policies. He also recognizes that neighborhoods decline for a myriad of reasons, and that there is no prescription for neighborhood revitalization. That said, von Hoffman asserts that neighborhood turn-arounds require support from citizens, non-profits, politicians, and corporations, but these organizations join together in very different ways depending on the time and place that change occurs. There are few weaknesses in the book, but at times, the litany of acronyms and last names can be confusing to the casual reader. While the use of acronyms makes certain sections difficult to read, the book is generally easy to read and friendly to the lay-person.

Chapter Four begins with the story of Earnest Gates, a successful black man on the brink of moving out of a bad neighborhood and into a luxury apartment in a wealthy neighborhood. Gates decides to take the money he would have spent on a fancy new apartment and renovate a home and begin to revitalize his old neighborhood. Not only does this story exemplify one way neighborhoods start to change, but it typifies von Hoffman's ability to intrigue readers with a touching story. Storytelling is one way to draw in a reader and keep them interested on a personal level, and it conveys information in a way that is accessible to a wide variety of readers.

House by House, Block by Block is an important book for planners because it details neighborhood revitalization from the beginning of the decline and includes sociological, political, economic, and locational reasons for change. The author openly discusses the racial tensions that exist in American cities and their effect on the decline of communities. He also points his finger at inept politicians, planners, and police and blames them when they are at fault for problems in their cities. The holistic approach to analyzing how neighborhoods evolve brings to light that true neighborhood revitalization requires more than simply building new housing; it requires cooperation, trust and a group of determined people and organizations with a vision for a better community.

This book supplements existing planning literature about city revitalization very well because it details events happening outside of downtowns at close range. Many planning texts and articles focus on development and revivals in downtowns and neglect the importance of the inner city neighborhood surrounding those downtowns. Von Hoffman focuses strictly on neighborhoods and fills a gap in the existing literature. He highlights the significance of neighborhoods, their inner life and soul, and the importance of the people who live in them.

The relevance of the books lies in the descriptions of how social change happens. Agents of social change range from members of the clergy to community members to landlords to politicians to urban planners. The change happens in different ways and on different levels in each case, but the outcome is always a similar - a healthier neighborhood. Studying social changes in this detailed manner reminds readers that there are no usual subjects for agents of change. Reminding people that change can happen anywhere and begin with anyone also inspires people to be revolutionaries in their own neighborhoods.

This is a very comprehensive historical review of urban regrowth in major U.S. cities. The author gives sometimes too detailed histories of what happened as formerly neglected areas rebuilt and reclaimed their glory as livable urban neighborhoods. By the stories chosen, it is obvious that the author does not subscribe to the government do it all model of urban regrowth - instead, he focuses on how cities can enable developers and groups to rebuild their cities house by house, block by block.

I do wish the author had included more best practices & guidelines for how others can learn from the successes of the cities described. As is, it seems focused too highly on giving the historical story, and less as a cogent synthesis of step-by-step urban renewal.

I found this book at a library and eventually purchased it with great hopes. The book goes through a couple different cities detailing different revitilization efforts that took place. I found that it was heavy on historical and not as much analysis as i was hoping for. Yet it still provided some examples for community development and helped to show the differences between development in cities. I found that section on L.A. to be particularly interesting