The author takes us from the seventh richest congressional district in the nation (being E 59th Street in New York City) to the poorest in the nation. A mere eighteen-minute ride by subway to the South Bronx, to a little place called Mott Haven; where the median family income for the 48000 residents is only $7,600. An area known for crack-cocaine and heroin; prostitution; poor hospital care, where one-quarter of new mothers tested in obstetric wards are HIV positive; and the police say is the deadliest precinct in the city.

Kozol writes about the trials and tribulations of everyday "normal" life for the children and people who live here. Normal for them however is quite d

Another factor involved is air pollution. With an incinerator located right in the middle of the South Bronx, it is no wonder why so many children have asthma. "According to a zip code breakdown of New York shown ... by Dr. Robert Massad ... asthma statewide in New York is 1.8 per 1000 people. In New York City, it is 2.5 per 1000, but in Mott Haven the rate rises to 6.0" (p. 171). To compound matters of health, the buildings that house these people are both rat infested and in such need of repair that they are borderline condemned. Most of the elevators do not work thus forcing its inhabitants to utilize the stairs which is very time consuming and energy draining; especially for the elderly. Once these people go outside, they are met with an extraordinary amount of drugs and violence and find it much safer to just stay inside their homes.

As we read further, we find that there are multitudes of problems inherent within the South Bronx. One of the only ways of determining where these problems stem from is by looking at the possible reasons as to why they exist. Drugs, violence, AIDS infections, are not new, however this community differs from others in the United States. One of the main differences is that the City has grouped all of these people together and created a "ghetto" of the lowest income families. Albeit the government helped get these people off the streets and out of homeless shelters and provided them with rent-free housing, they then decided to put them all together in one location. The City has effectively segregated them from the rest of the population and is telling them that they are not worthy of living with the rest of the population.

You would think that with all these negative influences surrounding this community that everyone would lose hope. Fortunately this is not true for many of the children that Kozol both talked to and befriended during his numerous journeys into their neighborhood. The children speak of their problems with a great deal of maturity. Many of them seem far older than their age, for they have felt true abandonment by our city. Many of the issues they have had to deal with are not ones in which we would think of as children's issues. AIDS for example, is not something that we think children would talk about or even think about. However for the children of the South Bronx, AIDS is a major issue. With one-quarter of the pregnant women in this neighborhood testing positive for AIDS, pediatric AIDS takes a high toll. The numbers of children who have had one or both parents die of AIDS in the South Bronx and surrounding areas is the highest among the nation. "...if the city continues with its present policy of channeling its sickest and most troublesome families, often addicted and quite frequently infected, into housing in this area, it is likely that entire blocks will soon be home to mourning orphans, many of whom will follow their own parents to an early grave." (p. 194)

The solution is to change the whole commu

Some common words found in the essay are:
South Bronx, Medical Center, Mott Haven, Normal Living, Lincoln Bronx-Lebanon, Jonathan Kozol, Battery Park, Bronx AIDS, York City, south bronx, Robert Massad, fifth floor, fourth floor, poor hospital care, patients fifth, york city, change community, poor hospital, rest population, people south, people south bronx, patients fifth floor, neighborhood children speak, children speak,
Approximate Word count = 2029
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)