Show Me A Hero

Description:

Gripping and timeless. Lisa Belkin's *Show Me A Hero* covers many important topics while re-telling the tragic and touching real-life events of Yonkers, NY in the 80's and 90's. --- Not in my backyard -- that's the refrain commonly invoked by property owners who oppose unwanted development. Such words assume a special ferocity when the development in question is public housing. Lisa Belkin penetrates the prejudices, myths, and heated emotions stirred by the most recent trend in public housing as she re-creates a landmark case in riveting detail, showing how a proposal to build scattered-site public housing in middle-class neighborhoods nearly destroyed an entire city and forever changed the lives of many of its citizens.

subjects: Social conditions,  History,  Politics and government,  Poor,  Race relations,  Public housing,  Social conflict,  African Americans,  Afro-Americans,  New york (state), social conditions,  Poor, new york (state),  New York Times reviewed,  Discrimination in housing

People: Nicholas Wasicsko,  Mary Dorman,  Oscar Newman,  Nay Noe Wasicsko,  Doreen Henderson,  Carmen Febles,  Norma O'neil,  Hank Spallone,  Jim Surdoval,  Anne Wasicsko,  Michael Wasicsko

Places: Yonkers,  New York (State),  Yonkers (N.Y.)

Times: 20th century,  1980s-1990s