Towards the end, he stated that he felt guilty for leaving the projects early because everyone else can't leave. In the Forward, Stephen J. Dubner said that Vankatesh spent "the better part of a decade" on the projects. Looking back, I'm not happy with that wording as he didn't actually live the projects. He visited the projects. He would write that the apartments didn't have many non-working utilities, but he didn't actually survive all that. I almost have the feeling that his work would be more effective than it already is if he lived there for a while, even if only six months. If he himself had to barter goods. If he had experienced it, perhaps he would have been able to better understand the barter system in the projects