Showing Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City by Elijah Anderson

Paperback. Pub date: 2001 07 Pages: 352 Publisher: WW Norton & Co. Inner-city black America is often stereotyped as a place of random violence; in fact Violence in the inner city is regulated through an informal but well -known code of the street. How you dress. talk. and behave can have life-or-death consequences. with young people particularly at risk.The most powerful force counteracting this code and its reign of terror is the strong. loving. decent family. and we meet many heroic figures in the course of this narrative. Unfortunately. the culture of the street thrives and often defeats decency because it controls public spaces. so that individuals with higher. better aspirations are often entangled in the code and its self -destructive behaviors.Writing in the tradition of Jane Jacobs and William Julius Wilson. the author delineates the true workings of city streets. Hi...