Lost City

Yesterday was an away-from-the-computer Saturday, as I did some chores and read, basically cover-to-cover, Alan Ehrenhalt's Lost City: The Forgotten Virtues of Community in America, which is Ehrenhalt's communitarian sociological history of three Chicago communities in the 1950s and what has happened to them since.

I don't usually go in for communitarianism. But Ehrenhalt is probably the most reasonable communitarian I've ever read, and he's really a journalist. He's very honest about the trade-offs between community on one side and choice and freedom on the other. He is palpably on the side of community and even authority, a term not used very often in as positive a manner in contemporary thought. It's also a great, quick read on Chicago history, especially on "Bronzeville," the African American community. I'm not sure I buy everything--Ehrenhalt's sensibility is perhaps a little too authoritarian.

Btw, I'm about half a book behind on the book-a-week resolution at this point, chiefly because I tried to tackle a very difficult book, which I have yet to finish. I may catch up a bit, though, because I'm on the road for work, today and tomorrow. Plenty of plane time for reading. But I will have limited Internet access. So it may be a while before I post again.