Customer Reviews

Organizing the South Bronx (Suny Series the New Inequalities)

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I recall reding this book about 4 years ago. My recollection is that Rooney did a good job of explaining how he came to study education in the Bronx and discovered Industrial Area Foundation organizing in the South Bronx around the issues of better public education and affordable housing in particular. I thought he did a good job of gaining valuable access to the organization, its leaders and organizers. His interviews and insights were very interesting. I must admit being of a fan of this kind of Faith-based organizing myself having seen it be effective in Chicago as it has been in Rooney's description of the Bronx. Faith-based plus other institutions can democratically improve neighborhoods and revitalize citizen democracy in all types of neighborhoods from the Bronx to Westchester County.

I was disappointed in this book, but I think many people might still find it well worth reading. Rooney tells the story of South Bronx Churches, an Industrial Areas Foundation affiliate, which came to organize in the Bronx, with the primary purpose of building affordable, single-family homes on some of the Bronx's famous open land.

Unfortunately, Rooney doesn't critically examine anything the SBC people say to him. He presents their opinion, and their own descriptions of their strategies and their results, as fact. It would be more interesting if he were able to evaluate what the group accomplished in comparison to other groups, or in comparison to the goals they set for themselves.

But if one recognizes this fault, one can read much of the history of this significant Bronx organization in these pages.

And I have to say this -- either the author or the publisher should have used a spell-checker on this book.