ShannonCT
Deity
I caught the last minute of The Colbert Report last night and I noticed the guest was Sudhir Venketesh. If you've read Freakonomics (by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner), you might recognize the name.
Sudhir came to the University of Chicago in 1989 to pursue a Ph.D in sociology. Famed sociologist William Julius Wilson thought Sudhir would be a good person to send to survey residents of the Robert Taylor housing projects about how they felt about being poor and black. On his first foray into the projects, Sudhir ran into a local gang and was held hostage for a night, but eventually came to be a confidant of the gang leaders. The data and financial records that he was able to collect led to the chapter in Freakonomics entitled "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?"
Anyway, as I was Googling Sudhir last night, I ran across this lecture by Steven Levitt (part of the TED series) where he tells the story of Sudhir, and goes into some of their findings about gang life.
The whole 22 minute lecture is good, but if you're getting bored, skip ahead to the 5:00 minute mark and the 18:20 mark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UGC2nLnaes
Sudhir came to the University of Chicago in 1989 to pursue a Ph.D in sociology. Famed sociologist William Julius Wilson thought Sudhir would be a good person to send to survey residents of the Robert Taylor housing projects about how they felt about being poor and black. On his first foray into the projects, Sudhir ran into a local gang and was held hostage for a night, but eventually came to be a confidant of the gang leaders. The data and financial records that he was able to collect led to the chapter in Freakonomics entitled "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?"
Anyway, as I was Googling Sudhir last night, I ran across this lecture by Steven Levitt (part of the TED series) where he tells the story of Sudhir, and goes into some of their findings about gang life.
The whole 22 minute lecture is good, but if you're getting bored, skip ahead to the 5:00 minute mark and the 18:20 mark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UGC2nLnaes
