his survey. The project comprised three sixteen-story buildings made of yellow-gray brick. Venkatesh soon discovered that the names and ad- dresses he had been given were badly outdated. These buildings were condemned, practically abandoned. Some families lived on the lower floors, pirating water and electricity, but the elevators didnt work. Neither did the lights in the stairwell. It was late afternoon in early winter, nearly dark outside. Venkatesh, who is a thoughtful, handsome, and well built but not aberrationally brave person, had made his way up to the sixth floor, trying to find someone willing to take his survey. Suddenly, on the stairwell landing, he startled a group of teenagers shooting dice. They turned out to be a gang of junior-level crack dealers who operated out of the building, and they were not happy to see him. "Im a student at the University of Chicago," Venkatesh sputtered, sticking to his survey script, "and I am administering-" "Fuck you, nigger, what are you doing in our stairwell?" There was an ongoing gang war in Chicago. Things had been vio- lent lately, with shootings nearly every day. This gang, a branch of the Black Gangster Disciple Nation, was plainly on edge. They didnt know what to make of Venkatesh. He didnt seem to be a member of a rival gang. But maybe he was some kind of spy? He certainly wasnt a     cop. He wasnt black, wasnt white. He wasnt exactly threatening-he was armed only with his clipboard-but he didnt seem quite harm- less either. Thanks to his three months trailing the Grateful Dead, he still looked, as he would later put it, "like a genuine freak, with hair down to my ass." The gang members started arguing over what should be done with Venkatesh. Let him go? But if he did tell the rival gang about this stairwell hangout, theyd be susceptible to a surprise attack. One jittery kid kept wagging something back and forth in his hands-in