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Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor Paperback – February 1, 2009

4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 71 ratings
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In this revelatory book, Sudhir Venkatesh takes us into Maquis Park, a poor black neighborhood on Chicago’s Southside, to explore the desperate, dangerous, and remarkable ways in which a community survives. We find there an entire world of unregulated, unreported, and untaxed work, a system of living off the books that is daily life in the ghetto. From women who clean houses and prepare lunches for the local hospital to small-scale entrepreneurs like the mechanic who works in an alley; from the preacher who provides mediation services to the salon owner who rents her store out for gambling parties; and from street vendors hawking socks and incense to the drug dealing and extortion of the local gang, we come to see how these activities form the backbone of the ghetto economy.

What emerges are the innumerable ways that these men and women, immersed in their shadowy economic pursuits, are connected to and reliant upon one another. The underground economy, as Venkatesh’s subtle storytelling reveals, functions as an intricate web, and in the strength of its strands lie the fates of many Maquis Park residents. The result is a dramatic narrative of individuals at work, and a rich portrait of a community. But while excavating the efforts of men and women to generate a basic livelihood for themselves and their families, Off the Books offers a devastating critique of the entrenched poverty that we so often ignore in America, and reveals how the underground economy is an inevitable response to the ghetto’s appalling isolation from the rest of the country.

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  1. Print length
    448 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harvard University Press
  4. Publication date
    February 1, 2009
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1.12 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0674030710
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0674030718
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“No scholar in America understands the underground economy like Sudhir Venkatesh. The book is both beautifully written and incredibly insightful. I can't remember the last time I learned so much from reading a book.”―Steven D. Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics

“Sudhir Venkatesh has uncovered a social world that will surprise even the most sophisticated observers of human behavior. This extraordinary study could become a classic urban ethnography, and will certainly change the way we think about life and work in the underground.”―William Julius Wilson, author of When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor

“Off the Books is an outstanding contribution to our understanding urban economic, social and political processes. This engrossing ethnography has led me to change how I theoretically think about fundamental concepts such as social capital, social isolation, and the state of civil society in the US.”―Michael C. Dawson, author of Black Visions

“An original portrait of the blurred boundaries between so-called legitimate and illegitimate economic relations in the U.S. ghetto …A most comprehensive look at the informal economic life of the urban poor.”―Mitchell Duneier, author of Sidewalk

“An unsentimental but powerfully human analysis of the webs of underground activity that sustain poor neighborhoods and their residents. Venkatesh gives the lie to the denigrating tropes of shiftlessness, mental dullness, government dependence, and disorganization that have been used to indict families in poverty.”―Mary Pattillo, author of Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City

“In this revealing study of a Southside Chicago neighborhood, sociologist Venkatesh opens a window on how the poor live...Venkatesh keeps his work vital and poignant by using the words of his subjects.”―Publishers Weekly

“[Venkatesh] spent years in a 10-square-block neighborhood on Chicago's South Side observing the clandestine work of gangbangers and mechanics, prostitutes and pastors. The result, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, suggests that in some American neighborhoods, the underground economy is a source not just of sustenance but of order, and that while shady transactions may be illegal, they adhere to a distinctive and sophisticated set of laws.”―Patrick Radden Keefe, Slate.com

“Remember the Chicago grad student in Freakonomics who figured out why drug dealers live with their mothers? His name is Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, and his new book, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, is the riveting drug-dealer back story--and a lot more. Venkatesh, who is now a professor of sociology and African-American studies at Columbia, spent 1995 to 2003 following the money in 10 square blocks of the Chicago ghetto. He finds an intricate underground web. In it are dealers and prostitutes--and also pastors who take their money, nannies who don't report income, unlicensed cab drivers, off-the-books car mechanics, purveyors of home-cooked soul food, and homeless men paid to sleep outside stores. Venkatesh's insight is that the neighborhood doesn't divide between 'decent' and 'street'--almost everyone has a foot in both worlds. 'Don't matter in some ways if it's the gang or the church,' says one woman as she describes the network that gives her some sense of security. The Wire meets academia, Off the Books is a great and an instructive read.”―Emily Bazelon, Slate.com

“[Venkatesh] examines the underground economy of a poor Chicago neighborhood and discovers a thriving system of licit and illicit exchange. Although the resourcefulness of certain drug dealers, back-alley mechanics, and fly-by-night day-care providers is remarkable, Venkatesh argues that under-the-table transactions work to further separate their participants from the economic mainstream.”―Benjamin Healy, The Atlantic

“In Off the Books, Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh defines the underground economy as 'a web in which many different people, from the criminal to the pious, from the down-and-out to the bourgeois, are inextricably intertwined'...The story Venkatesh tells in Off the Books is specific to Maquis Park, but the underground economy he found there almost certainly has its counterpart in the black ghettos of large cities. Indeed, its reach extends beyond the ghetto to the kitchens of restaurants, the homes of the well-off and the myriad service jobs that employ workers off the books. Yet it remains in the shadows, barely touched by researchers, a vast world usually ignored, misunderstood, or dismissed with stereotypes. Venkatesh's riveting account describes the underground economy through vividly realized characters...[His] dissection of Maquis Park's underground economy overturns one stereotype and common assumption about the urban poor after another...Venkatesh finds the underground economy's origins in the racism, economic devastation, and political abandonment that have decimated many big American cities...What can be done? Venkatesh offers no concrete remedies. But that is not his point. Off the Books is not about policy. Wonderfully written, brilliantly researched, it illuminates, as no other book has done, the ubiquitous world of shady activities that structure everyday life for the residents of the nation's Maquis Parks in ways few Americans observe or understand.”―Michael B. Katz, Chicago Tribune

“Venkatesh paints a detailed picture that reflects his close acquaintance with the neighborhood, moving from businesses that are legal but off the books to those that are entirely outside the law and talking to home-based food preparers and preachers, street hustlers and gang members...This is a Chicago you don't know, told in readable prose that puts most other sociologists to shame.”―Harold Henderson, Chicago Reader

“In Sudhir Venkatesh's newly published Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, readers are introduced to a cast-royale of rogues, some loveable, others little short of detestable, who inhabit a super-isolated ghetto neighborhood in Southside Chicago...For four hundred pages, Venkatesh describes in intimate detail the often bizarre world of economic relationships in this urban edge zone, largely outside the web of economic, political, legal, and law-enforcement structures that dominate mainstream American life. The result is a compelling, deeply disturbing ground-level view of today's underclass...His approach--offering a pastiche of images of the ghetto economy rather than bombarding readers with statistics on income levels, life expectancy, and so forth--firmly situates Venkatesh in a long tradition of writers preoccupied with anecdotally chronicling America's underside and crafting verbal portraits of the colorful, often entertaining misfits on the margins...Overall, this is a fascinating look at a place and community that would otherwise remain entirely under the radar. If our economy and society throws up such spectacular inequalities, at the very least we owe it to the poorest of the poor to try to understand their lives, their struggles, their pain. Venkatesh takes us into this world; it's an often-ugly place, but, as Off the Books shows, it is also one that is strangely compelling.”―Sasha Abramsky, American Prospect Online

“[A] remarkable book.”―Paul Seabright, Times Literary Supplement

“[Venkatesh] immersed himself in Maquis Park, a poor black neighborhood on Chicago’s Southside…He discovered and analyzed the diverse forms of unregulated, unreported, and untaxed work of small business owners. This “off the books” world thrives due to residents’ lack of human capital, high entry costs, poverty, and social isolation. Venkatesh’s analysis weaves hair salons, auto repairs, pimps, drug dealers, block club leaders, ministers, and gang leaders into an intricate web of exchange networks. Varied individuals are also called upon to mediate conflicts in the neighborhood. Venkatesh concludes that without significant changes in inner cities, the underground will flourish. Reminiscent of works by Elijah Anderson.”―J A. Fiola, Choice

About the Author

Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh is William B. Ransford Professor of Sociology at Columbia University.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press; 1st edition (February 1, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674030710
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674030718
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.12 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 71 ratings

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Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh

Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh

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Sudhir Venkatesh is William B. Ransford Professor of Sociology & the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University in the City of New York. He served as a Senior Advisor to the Department of Justice from 2009-2012.

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4.1 out of 5 stars
71 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book informative and well-written. They find it eye-opening and a rich environment for academic inquiry. However, some readers feel the anecdotes are repetitive and tedious. Opinions differ on the narrative quality, with some finding it persuasive and immersing, while others find it muddled and interrupted by arcane points of academic theory.

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Value for moneyInsightReadabilityNarrative qualityRepetitiveness
11 customers mention "Value for money"11 positive0 negative

Customers find the book engaging and worthwhile. They describe it as an interesting read that provides a comprehensive overview and insightful analysis of impoverished Chicago.

"This is a great book...." Read more

"...make it a far more pleasurable read. However, this comes with a lot of effort on the reader's part. Venkatesh writing style is circular..." Read more

"...accomplished what he intended: an insightful overview and persuasive analyzed study of an impoverished Chicago underground neighborhood that..." Read more

"...It takes a strong stomach to read this, BUt is worth every word." Read more

10 customers mention "Insight"10 positive0 negative

Customers find the book provides an interesting insight into how impoverished families make ends meet. They find it informative, eye-opening, and revealing. The subject matter is specific with great depth of research and discovery. Overall, readers appreciate the book's ability to present reality on the ground level of life.

"Some books are informative. And some books are eye-opening. This book is eye-opening...." Read more

"...the argument is that he has accomplished what he intended: an insightful overview and persuasive analyzed study of an impoverished Chicago..." Read more

"This is a great book. really presents reality on the ground level of life, If the Elites only spent a week living by the laws and rules of the..." Read more

"...daily life of the urban poor, and certainly has an interesting five page journal article here, unfortunately he also has an addional382 pages of..." Read more

4 customers mention "Readability"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book well-written and easy to read. They say it's informative and could be nice to read with Gang Leader for a Day. The author does a great job of demonstrating how there is blurring between different types of crime.

"...Indeed, the author does a great job of demonstrating how there is a blurring of lines, that there is a lot of overlap...." Read more

"This is a really interesting book that could be nice to read with Gang Leader for a Day, as the latter also discusses the underground economy,..." Read more

"well written and engaging...." Read more

"This book is an easy read and very informative...." Read more

7 customers mention "Narrative quality"3 positive4 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the narrative quality. Some find it persuasive and immersive, making them feel immersed in life. Others find it muddled, with digressions into obscure academic theory that interrupt the narrative flow. The anecdotes and live situations are bizarre yet possess their own underlying logic. The limited use of facts or survey data make the book less useful, and it illustrates what is problematic rather than being uplifting.

"...Far from being boring, reading this book made me feel immersed in life with real people making the best life they could...." Read more

"...The limited use of any facts or survey data make this book less useful than it could have been if it were not so focused on anecdotes with little..." Read more

"...ends with it. This would be a nice narrative device if it were not for mind-numbing continuous retreading over the same thoughts, ideas and..." Read more

"...His digressions into obscure and arcane points of academic theory interrupt the narrative flow and make the book a tedious read at times...." Read more

3 customers mention "Repetitiveness"0 positive3 negative

Customers find the book repetitive. They mention it contains tedious anecdotes from the author's time interviewing urban people.

"...page journal article here, unfortunately he also has an addional382 pages of tedious, repetitive anecdotes from his time interviewing the urban poor...." Read more

"This book is somewhat long and seems repetitive, but it is an accomplishment, and refreshing to see a reality based economic and sociological..." Read more

"...not because the content was extremely bad. it was just highly repetitive. the kindle edition needs editing dramatically...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Robert Daniels
    5.0 out of 5 stars Way More Than Informative...
    Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2006
    Verified Purchase
    Some books are informative. And some books are eye-opening. This book is eye-opening. Read it and you will learn many fascinating things you never dreamed were going on....

    ...unless you already live in a highly urbanized/disadvantaged neighborhood.

    The author is an enterprising young academic who is drawn to the firsthand study of life in such neighborhoods. Being of mixed race "gave me (the author) an indeterminate and unthreatening presence" by which he could spend months with the residents - enough time to understand life and the economy there with more thoroughness than perhaps ever before.

    The underground economy in this corner of America is woven into every fabric of life. You learn first hand about enterprises running the gamut from the homeless fellow who does reliable auto repair in back alleys and side streets, to the (no surprise here) sex workers and drug sellers, to the stay at home mom that cooks meals for local residents, shopkeepers and even the police.

    You learn how the local gang leader is not simply a lawless soul feared by all, but a broker of influence upon which even the most upstanding residents come to rely.

    With so much disadvantage built into the neighborhood you come to understand how everyone learns to accept shady economic dealings out of the joint recognition of the need to survive. But when such dealings bring a larger than acceptable threat to the children and residents, then the gang leader is often brought in to broker a deal to return things to homeostasis.

    As a white suburbanite here is what struck me the most. There is waaaaay more tolerance and acceptance among neighbors in the ghetto than there is in suburbia. There is waaaaay more neighbor involvement and mutual reliance in the ghetto than in suburbia. In fact, instead of the ongoing competition so often found in the suburbs, the ghetto is characterized by the opposite - genuine concern for and involvement with one's neighbors.

    Is it a great place to live? Of course not. I mean, any world where you have to call on the gang leader to broker safety in the streets for kids must be a risky world.

    But as the book will teach you, there is a richness, mutual acceptance, and mutual protection that would be envied in the safer suburbs. Not to mention a level of economic enterprise that outsiders - until now - had no idea existed.

    As I said at the beginning, some books teach you additional things about something you already know. This book teaches you about something (you will admit by page 10) you almost certainly know nothing.
    86 people found this helpful
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  • Rita Sydney
    5.0 out of 5 stars Real People, Real Life
    Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    This is a great book.
    I think the name does it a disservice; potential readers might think its going to be a catalogue of under the counter ways of making money and probably boring.

    What the book does is show how people manage to live amidst poverty, lack of job opportunities, discrimination, neglect, and abuse. It shows how people in "shady" ways of making a living exist along side the more law abiding. Indeed, the author does a great job of demonstrating how there is a blurring of lines, that there is a lot of overlap.

    Far from being boring, reading this book made me feel immersed in life with real people making the best life they could. There are a lot of good people in these pages; inventive, creative, people who can care about others even as they struggle against hard circumstances.

    This book left me with a lot of understanding about a world usually pitied and/or slandered by the media Also left me with questions; e.g. do you have to be poor to be humane?
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Misha
    4.0 out of 5 stars a muddled account of a fascinating subject
    Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2007
    Verified Purchase
    I'll try not to repeat what the other reviewers have already said and
    just express my opinion on the book.

    It is sad but all too true that the poor seldom speak for
    themselves. And even though they may live a few blocks away, it
    requires a prolonged ethnographic study like Venkatesh's to get
    the picture of their daily lives and economic relations.

    And the picture he paints is indeed fascinating. Sterile academic
    words like "gang activity" or "narcotics" that Venkatesh uses contrast
    with the stark reality and the daily struggle that the urban
    downtrodden have to lead. This is probably the single most important
    reason to read this book. The book provides a comprehensive survey to
    the twisted economic and social life of the "shady world": there is a
    chapter on "soccer moms", on business people, on street hustlers, the
    preachers and on the street gangs. However, the main feel that I got
    for Marquis Park is that of a place of crushing poverty and
    despair. The anecdotes and live situations are bizarre yet possess
    their own underlying logic: a gang leader as a person to turn to to
    mediate conflicts; a garage owner paying his mechanics with used radio
    equipment instead of cash; a church leader "placing" his parishioners
    into the homes of the affluent, getting a cut of their wages and then
    "rotating" them to make sure they do not lose their dependence on him;
    the small business owners fostering relationships with each other
    through small loans to secure against tough economic circumstance; the
    same business owners are afraid to operate outside the ghetto because
    the operating environment is so insecure and the relationships inside
    the community provide the meager support in case of hard times. It is
    breathtaking how the residents of Marquis Park completely gave up on
    the safety net of the modern state and, as in primitive societies,
    rely on their children to provide care and support in their old age.

    The author's sympathy towards his subjects shows often in the book and
    make it a far more pleasurable read. However, this comes with a lot
    of effort on the reader's part. Venkatesh writing style is circular
    and repetitive. The book starts from the death of the gang leader and
    ends with it. This would be a nice narrative device if it were not for
    mind-numbing continuous retreading over the same thoughts, ideas and
    facts. And it is not that Venkatesh repeats himself word-for-word but
    he just goes over the same territory and re-references or re-stresses
    or reiterates ad nauseam. At some point I started treating the books
    as a primary source --- a witness account rather than a synthetic
    scholarly work. Another major complaint is the scatterbrained treatment
    of the material. With all the repetition, some of the important
    economic background and the history of the formation of the ghetto is
    tucked in somewhere in the middle of the book. For example, the ghetto
    got so poor because most of the blue color jobs that the ghetto
    residents used to be able to get were shipped overseas. This fact is
    mentioned offhandedly in the introduction of one of the middle
    chapters.

    Another major annoyance is the lack of numbers and statistics in the
    book. How difficult was it to state what the number of people in
    Marquis Park was? How many of them actually migrate out of it? It
    seems that there is a constant outflow of people. What is their
    average income? How does it compare to the other American inner
    cities? What are the economic dynamics of it? They have become poorer
    in the last twenty years, but by how much? The author claims there is
    no adequate policing. How many policemen are there per resident? How
    does it compare to other parts of the city? The author claims there is
    overcrowding. How many square feet are there per resident? and so on.
    At last it would not have hurt this book to provide some sort of an
    idea of what is required to better the lot of the residents of Marquis
    Park.
    10 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Manson88
    4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 24, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Entertaining and educational. But sadly falls short of perfection due to the writer's bias for certain solutions.
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  • J. Prince
    4.0 out of 5 stars interesting
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 14, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    This book offers a good insight into the so called shadow economy. I enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to any one interested in Urban Economics.
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