The title of Dr. Michael C. Lens’ book is attention-grabbing. Where the Hood At? Fifty Years of Change in Black Neighborhoods is a familiar callback if you’re a diehard DMX fan. “Where the Hood At?” off the late rapper’s 2003 album Grand Champ is an intoxicating dose of fighting music for “the dogs,” with the video set in his neighborhood of Yonkers, New York.
“DMX’s song plays a very big role in the material,” Lens says. “To me, the substantive double entendre is where is the hood at geographically? So where is it at physically? And then where is it at in terms of its well-being? That’s the double meaning I am going for.”
A professor of urban planning and Public Policy at the University of California Los Angeles Luskin School of Public Affairs, Lens got into his field of work because he was interested in how government and public policy could improve the various challenges people face with low incomes. He says growing up in “relatively segregated environments” got him into housing research, adding to his interest in education, criminal justice policy and labor market policy…