January 19, 2007
Urban Poor Use Underground Economy to Survive, Sociologist Says
Sudhir A. Venkatesh, professor of sociology at Columbia University
In inner cities, legitimate jobs are scarce, so citizens improvise to support their households, says Mr. Venkatesh in Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor (Harvard University Press). He lived in a Chicago neighborhood, observing how unlicensed cab drivers, drug dealers, off-the-books car mechanics, cops on the take, and others who evaded conventional economic
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