Chicago's South Side has long been a renowned laboratory for groundbreaking research on Black urban life. The city's vast Black population, largely the product of the Great Migration, has made Chicago the home of both a celebrated Black middle class and an unsettling Black lower class. These two extremes have been meticulously documented over the years through a distinct style of sociological fieldwork known as the Chicago School. Now, more than 60 years after the publication of Drake and Cayton's "Black Metropolis", Dr. Mary Pattillo, a professor of sociology at Northwestern University, and Dr. Cathy J. Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, are doing research that reflects the new dynamics of Black urban life in the 21st century, as internal conflicts take on a more important role in Black studies. Pattillo's book, "Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City", studies the gentrification of poor Black neighborhoods. In February, Cohen released the "Black Youth Project", widely considered to be the first comprehensive national examination of the attitudes and beliefs of today's young Black population. Unlike Pattillo, Cohen's research is not strictly rooted in Chicago, but both scholars emphasize the differences within the Black community. Both are credited with expanding the boundaries of Black studies during a period that has seen group dynamics shift from the consensus that often defined the civil rights era to the internal conflicts of recent years.