Zócalo Public Square

Princeton University sociologist Mitchell Duneier visited Zócalo at MOCA Grand Avenue to discuss how the ghetto was invented as a place and an idea. The story stretches from 16th-century Venice, Italy, to contemporary urban America, with stops in between in Nazi Germany and among mid-century University of Chicago social scientists. Dueneier is the author of Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea, winner of the seventh annual Zócalo Public Square Book Prize, which is awarded to the year’s nonfiction book that most enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion.