Code of the Street

"Unsparing and important.… An informative, clearheaded and sobering book."—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post

Urban violence is often stereotyped as senseless, but in fact, it is highly regulated through an unwritten code of the street. This set of rules is a powerful and pervasive form of etiquette that governs the way people negotiate safety in public spaces. In this seminal urban ethnography, Elijah Anderson illuminates the informal code that develops when formal institutions of law and order prove untrustworthy or unjust.