Family Properties

A "New York Times" Notable Book. In a powerful book, Beryl Satter identifies the true causes of the city's black slums and the ruin of urban neighborhoods across the country in this gripping story of a city in crisis: a widespread and institutionalized system of legal and financial exploitation not black pathology, the culture of poverty, or white flight. Unscrupulous attorneys, slumlords, and speculators are pitted against religious reformers, community organizers, and an enthusiastic attorney who started a campaign against the profiteers—the author's father, Mark J. Satter—in his seminal exploration of segregation and urban degradation in Chicago.