MixedThe Chicago ReaderAusten handled his book more as a chronicler than an embedded reporter. This is perhaps the most reasonable and respectful approach to the subject matter that a middle-class white writer who's never lived in public housing could take. Rather than posturing as an intrepid journalist on a poverty safari, Austen sets out to give the general audience a long-overdue history lesson on where Cabrini-Green came from, who lived there and how they lived, and why the 23-building project ultimately became the primary symbol of a national public policy failure ... One drawback of the narrative is that some moments in history that were emblematic of massive intellectual and ideological shifts in the way America positioned itself vis-a-vis the poor are glossed over in a couple of sentences ... if we're ever to understand that the fate of Cabrini-Green and public housing as a whole wasn't fated, that the ultimate results weren't inevitable but rather designed, then it's necessary to denaturalize what has so long been presented as unavoidable ... But even without these critical perspectives from Austen himself, the book is hardly approving of Chicago's decision to dismantle Cabrini-Green, and demonstrates that in many ways the solutions to its problems created more problems than they resolved.
