Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets Paperback – December 30, 2008

I give this American sociological ethnography, researched in the Chicago housing projects, my highest recommendation for other readers. Written by an Indian sociologist, born in India, raised as an immigrant in California, and transplanted to Chicago, the book is riveting and nearly impossible to put down at each reading.Aside from learning all about life in the Projects and enjoying the story of getting to know the people in this book, I learned several important things which I never realized before.This book showed me what life was like in every primitive society before the rule of law. One can either have a society where the Rule of Law is enforced, or one where the Law of Power is enforced.Where we have the Rule of Law, everyone is subject to the rule, and laws and contracts are enforced. This protects the general public against HUMAN PREDATORS as THIEVES, as well as those engaged in "OUTLAW CAPITALISM."What we have here in the Projects is a TRIBAL SOCOETY, where the leader (warlord) manages with a combination of POWER and CHARISMA. He takes a cut (like a 'federal' tax) off of EVERY activity that goes on in the complex, from selling candy, washing cars, prostitution, sub-lets, and of course, drug sales. There are smaller community leaders (smaller warlords, male and female) who also take cuts off a number of smaller activities (like 'local' taxes).Reading this book helped me better understand the piracy in Somalia and why we are unlikely to see it eliminated in our lifetimes. Once a society has collapsed, it goes back to this warlord model. It takes a long time for a society to build out of that; such a society cannot easily be put back together. In fact, this model probably applies to more human societies, even today, than does the democratic model.This book helped me to better understand government corruption in the developing world. A democratic model is trying to be imposed upon peoples who behave in a tribal and/or predatory manner with each other.This is a model that the middle and upper classes in America are far enough removed from that they don't understand it. The whole model makes it difficult for people to get out of this life paradigm.I especially learned that the MOST important business of government--more important than defense, or infrastructure--is REGULATION. Here we have everyone needing to be a "hustler" in order to survive. We have capitalism at it's most extreme and unregulated form. This book really showed me why it is important that capitalism continue to be regulated.This book also had a lot to say about everyday micromanagement of the drug trade on the street level. It covered a different facet than many other books on the drug trade, which concentrate on the lives of the top bosses. I learned that selling drugs on a street corner is actually the drug industry's minimum-wage job, also undertaken for the maximum risk.Anyone interested in these subjects should definitely read this book.

Venkatesh has written a truly remarkable book. This book is a great read and hard to put down. Really. I stayed up till dawn to finish it. It's like The Wire, but minus the cops, and real.You can get the plot and basic ideas from other reviews. I've been a fan of his since I saw him give a job talk at Harvard when I was in graduate school many years ago. What should be made clear is that this book is more than very enjoyable. It is essential reading for ethnographers and sociologists.Never has a qualitative researcher been so honest about research methods. As a fellow research, I can relate to this. The issues Venkatesh deals with are things we've all dealt with (well, maybe not to the same extreme). Through the chaos described in Gang Leader for a Day, the messy world of social-science research is made a little more understandable.Reading Gang Leader for a Day, I felt as if I was reading the flipside ofCop in the Hood. I knew the police side well; here's the side I always wanted to know.Venkatesh claims he was far more naive than daring. No matter how naive, such work takes daring. I'm pretty daring. So the idea of simply walking into the Robert Taylor homes... well, it's simply incomprehensible. Maybe you have to be from Chicago to understand how ominous these looming towers were. No matter, Sudhir did it, and he provides insight into a world that outsiders normally only saw from TV or zooming past on the Dan Ryan Freeway.

Venkatesh, S. A. (2008). Gang leader for a day: A rogue sociologist takes to the streets. Penguin Press.Sudhir Venkatesh, is William B Ransford Professor of Sociology & African-American Studies at Columbia University, a position he has held since 1999. He holds an MA in Mathematics from UC San Diego and a PhD in Sociology from University of Chicago.This book offers a rare glimpse into the complex ecosystem of Chicago's urban poverty in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As a graduate sociology student at the University of Chicago, Venkatesh's academic curiosity leads him deep into the Robert Taylor Homes, one of America's most notorious housing projects, where he forms an unlikely relationship with JT, a charismatic crack-dealing gang leader associated with the Black Kings gang.What begins as a naive attempt to distribute surveys evolves into a years-long ethnographic study that challenges conventional academic approaches to studying poverty. Venkatesh noted, "Most of these researchers didn't seem interested in meeting the people they wrote about," highlighting the disconnect between scholarly theory and lived reality.The book's greatest strength lies in its nuanced portrayal of the Black Kings gang not merely as criminals, but as a complex organization with its own governance structure, economic principles, and community relationships. JT explains to Venkatesh that "the gang and the building are the same," revealing how these ostensibly criminal organizations functioned as de facto administrators in communities largely abandoned by legitimate authorities.Venkatesh's growing relationship with JT transitions from frightened outsider to trusted observer. When JT invites him to be "gang leader for a day," he illustrates the challenges of managing an underground economy: "There seemed to be no end to the problems that JT encountered during this weekly reconnaissance, problems he'd have to fix before they spun out of control." This experience reveals the surprising parallels between running a criminal enterprise and managing a legitimate business—enforcing contracts, motivating workers, and dealing with competition.The book is refreshingly honest about the ethical complications of Venkatesh's research. He admits that his sociological obsession sometimes harmed the very people he studied: "I had been so wrapped up in my desire to obtain good data that I couldn't anticipate the consequences of my actions." When information he shared with community leaders was used to tax previously undiscovered underground businesses, Venkatesh confronts the real-world impact of his academic ambitions.The book explores how various power structures—gangs, tenant leaders, police, and social organizations—negotiate a fragile equilibrium in the projects. Ms. Bailey, the building president, emerges as a particularly fascinating figure who must collaborate with criminal elements to maintain her authority and help residents. Venkatesh reflects: "I found myself wondering how much Ms. Bailey's actions were actually a response to hardships that limited her options and how much arose from her own desire to have power."As Venkatesh becomes increasingly embedded in this world, he struggles with his dual identity: "I was starting to feel schizophrenic, as if I were one person in the projects...and another back in Hyde Park." This tension between academic observation and human connection runs throughout the narrative, ultimately challenging traditional notions of objectivity in social science research.Beyond the research angle, this book offers compelling storytelling by humanizing people typically reduced to statistics and stereotypes while offering a sharp critique of public policy approaches to urban poverty. The book concludes with the demolition of the Robert Taylor Homes, symbolizing the end of an era but leaving readers with important questions about housing, governance, and community that remain relevant decades later.This book would be of interest to scholars and general readers exploring leadership dynamics, social networks, social capital formation, legal estrangement in marginalized communities, urban poverty, Chicago history, and ethnographic research methods with their attendant ethical considerations. The methodological parallels with Alice Goffman's controversial 2014 work On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City are particularly noteworthy. While Goffman employed a similar embedded ethnographic approach documenting life in Philadelphia's low-income neighborhoods, she subsequently faced severe criticism over research ethics that contributed to her being denied tenure. In contrast, Venkatesh—despite candidly acknowledging similar methodological tensions throughout his work, "I had been so wrapped up in my desire to obtain good data that I couldn't anticipate the consequences of my actions" - emerged from his research to become a celebrated academic, ultimately securing a prestigious position at Columbia University. This divergent reception raises important questions about consistency in academic ethical standards, gender dynamics in ethnographic research evaluation, and the evolving boundaries of acceptable methodology in studying marginalized communities.