Mary Pattillo is Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northwestern University. Her new book, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City, documents the historic rise, alarming fall, and equally dramatic “renewal” of the North Kenwood–Oakland neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.

For Pattillo, North Kenwood-Oakland offers a “microcosm of boundary-making” within the African American community. As middle-class professionals move into the neighborhood, they resist the building of public housing and attempt to control the behaviors of their low-income neighbors. Many long-time residents have been displaced, and those that remain are supervised according to the new residents’ desires. This recent history of class tension in gentrifying areas begs the important question: For whom are we redeveloping these neighborhoods?

Join Pattillo and Chicago Public Radio’s Natalie Moore for a lively conversation about the politics of race and class in contemporary urban America!

Recorded Saturday, June 16, 2007 at Chicago Public Library-Englewood Branch.