| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 38.2

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 38.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Making a Better World: Public Housing, the Red Scare, and the Direction of Modern Los Angeles. By Don Parson. Foreword by Kevin Starr. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. xx + 289 pp. Illustrations, maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $68.95, cloth; $22.95, paper.)

This book differs from much of the literature on public housing and urban renewal since it is about a western city rather than one in the Midwest or East. Furthermore, instead of focusing on the actions of middle-class reformers, it traces the role of what author Don Parson calls the left-liberal popular front. That group, according to the author, ranged from "members of the Communist Party to left democrats to independent radicals to fellow travelers to non-Communist liberals" (p. 3). The book relies heavily on an assortment of interviews with those participants along with radical publications such as the People's World and never fully explains why supporters of public housing should be termed a front.

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