Judith DeSena

Sociology and Anthropology
St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Protecting One’s Turf
Publisher: University Press of America
Lanham, MD
2005, 132 pages

This book is a community study of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It focuses on how in the course of their everyday lives, residents engage in racial exclusion and segregation. The book analyzes the informal strategies used in the process, which include: an informal housing network; local surveillance; and social segregation through local institutions. This revised edition discusses gentrification as the most recent change in Greenpoint, and how it took hold in such a strongly defended neighborhood.