Rebecca Janowitz

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

There's definitely a fascinating book to be written about the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park, and of all the personality changes it's gone through over the last century and a half; originally developed whole-cloth in the middle of the wilderness in the mid-1800s, it was the location of the hugely influential 1893 World's Fair (which then afterwards was turned into a public-park showcase for Frederick Law Olmsted's experimental theories on landscape design), was envisioned from its outset to be the home of the University of Chicago, to this day one of the American Midwest's only world-class schools, and was literally one of the only urban areas in the entire country to thrive during the "white flight" years of the 1950s and '60s, creating the mixed-class, mixed-race, liberally intellectual environment that produced our current President, Barack Obama. Unfortunately, though, Rebecca Janowitz's Culture of Opportunity is not that book, but instead is the living embodiment of what rural conservatives complain about when discussing places like Hyde Park, an intolerably pollyannish apologia for the New Agey neighborhood and its shiny, happy denizens that is so smugly self-righteous, I could barely even make it through the masturbatory, forever-back-slapping first chapter. The very definition of preaching to the choir, this 250-page bohemian-bourgeoise rah-rah will make those who don't already adore the concept of Hyde Park simply hate it even more, and may in fact end up serving the opposite purpose in many eyes than the neighborhood boosterism Janowitz meant for it to be in the first place.

Out of 10: 4.5… (plus d'informations)