Code of the Street: Elijah Anderson

Code of the Street (1999), Elijah Anderson's landmark study of urban etiquette in Philadelphia, is widely assigned as a college text. The book grew out of a 1994 cover story in The Atlantic.

An Atlantic interview about the book with Anderson (who visits Tuesday, April 26) appeared August 18, 1999:

Q: To what extent are the dynamics of inner-city life in Philadelphia representative of inner-city life throughout the nation?

A: Wherever there are pockets of poverty and alienation -- whether you're talking about Chicago or New York, Rio or Johannesburg -- you have the code of the street. As a social scientist I am trying to represent this reality as accurately as I can because I think it's very important to get the real story out. My concern in this work is to develop a model that allows for an understanding of Philadelphia that has implications for understanding similar places. To the extent that there are similar problems, there may be similar solutions. More.