Hard Stuff: The Autobiography of Coleman Young

Rating:
Summary: No nonsense approach to urban problems--Great!
Review: I've had this book for a couple years now but only recently found the time to read it. Once I started, I couldn't put it down. Hard Stuff is great as a history of Detroit, a sociology of racism, and an analysis of tense urban/suburban relations. I think it is an extremely valuable resource for its honest look at the problems besetting Detroit and probably many other urban areas. Young's understandable rage with the Reagan/Bush adminstration's evisceration of urban policy comes through strongly, and is rather enlightening. If America is to truly rebuild its "Detroits", as Young notes, serious attention must be given to rapid transit, economic empowerment, and community policing. There are many great ideas in this book, and it should be required reading for urban planners, journalists, historians, and city officials everywhere. Young fought the establishment his whole life because he insisted that things could be better. Now gone from us, his book should help continue his efforts to force a reluctant system to address horrible problems which, in their continued existence, lower everyone's quality of life.

Rating:
Summary: No nonsense approach to urban problems--Great!
Review: I've had this book for a couple years now but only recently found the time to read it. Once I started, I couldn't put it down. Hard Stuff is great as a history of Detroit, a sociology of racism, and an analysis of tense urban/suburban relations. I think it is an extremely valuable resource for its honest look at the problems besetting Detroit and probably many other urban areas. Young's understandable rage with the Reagan/Bush adminstration's evisceration of urban policy comes through strongly, and is rather enlightening. If America is to truly rebuild its "Detroits", as Young notes, serious attention must be given to rapid transit, economic empowerment, and community policing. There are many great ideas in this book, and it should be required reading for urban planners, journalists, historians, and city officials everywhere. Young fought the establishment his whole life because he insisted that things could be better. Now gone from us, his book should help continue his efforts to force a reluctant system to address horrible problems which, in their continued existence, lower everyone's quality of life.