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How to Kill a City
How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood | Peter Moskowitz
10 posts | 9 read | 31 to read
While the mainstream media publishes style pieces about mustached hipsters brewing craft beers in warehouses in Brooklyn, global businessmen are remaking entire cities. While new coffee shops open for business in previously affordable neighborhoods, residents ignore the multi-million-dollar tax giveaways that have enabled real estate developers to build skyscrapers on top of brownstones. As journalist Peter Moskowitz shows in "How to Kill a City," gentrification is not a fad or a trend. Hipsters and yuppies have more buying power than the neighbors they often displace, but individual actors cannot control housing markets and remake cities on their own. Nor can gentrification be fully explained by developers either: while they might have similar interests, the part-time house flipper who owns five houses in New Orleans and the condo owner in Detroit do not coordinate policy with each other. There s a losing side and a winning side in gentrification, but both sides are playing the same gamethey are not its designers. "How to Kill a City" uncovers the massive, systemic, capitalist forces that push poor people out of cities and lure the young creative class. Gentrification, Moskowitz argues, is the logical consequence of racist, historic housing policies and the inevitable result of a neoliberalized economy: with little federal funding for housing, transportation, or anything else, American cities are now forced to rely completely on their tax base to fund basic services, and the richer a city s tax base, the easier those services are to fund. Moskowitz writes about four citiesNew Orleans, Detroit, San Francisco, and New Yorkand captures the lives that have been altered by gentrification. He also identifies the policies and policymakers who paved the way for the remaking of these cities. When we think of gentrification of some mysterious, inevitable process, we accept its consequences: the displacement of countless thousands of families, the destruction of cultures, the decreased affordability of life for everyone. "How to Kill a City" serves as a counterweight to hopelessness about the future of urban America that enables readers to see cities are shaped by powerful interests, and that if we identify those interests, we can begin to control them."
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notreallyelaine
Pickpick

One of the best books I read last year. It changed how I move through cities and started me on a deep dive into anti-gentrification lit and organizing.

The New Orleans section rocked me most - I straight up did not realize the extent of the gory aftermath of Katrina before the book. I felt humbled by the resilience of the Black New Orleaners profiled, fighting for their kids against the truly genocidal gentrification of their city. Recommend.

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LibrarianRenee
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This was a great (and sad) read.

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cpreja
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Pickpick

Usually I struggle with nonfiction however this one was extremely readable and kept my attention.

Full if great information this is an poignant and necessary read.

ValerieAndBooks I thought this book was fantastic. I came across it at the library and now want my own copy. Very thought-provoking! 7y
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cpreja
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Mayors are now often elected on the idea that they will run cities like businesses...the people running American cities no longer care about affordability, a city's ability to educate children, or the happiness and health of its residents; rather, they are only interested in the amount of money a city is able to generate.

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cpreja
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"...it is rare to see gentrifiers take a full reckoning of history and recognize that their presence is often predicated upon the lessened quality of life of someone else, the displacement of someone else, or in the case of New Orleans, the death of someone else".

As my husband and I start to consider buying a new home, gentrification is heavy on my mind.....

Reviewsbylola This sounds very interesting. 7y
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ValerieAndBooks
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I love cities and interesting downtowns, and living within very short distance of them. That said, I like my elbow room too much to actually want to live in a city. But, for those who live in cities, it can be a struggle to stay where they are because of gentrification. Author doesn't blame individuals, but points out various systems that are detrimental and contributes to insane living costs. Very eye-opening and now I want my own copy of this!

Leftcoastzen Thanks for great review! Over the years these issues have effected me and others I know ,want to read soon. 7y
NCNY Gentrification is creeping up on my neighborhood. I'm going to check this out. 7y
ValerieAndBooks @Leftcoastzen it's very thought-provoking. Change is inevitable everywhere but not always for the best for everyone. 7y
See All 8 Comments
ValerieAndBooks @NCNY the author is a New Yorker so the sections where he discusses gentrification and ways landlords get tenants out would probably be relevant. (ETA: sections where he discusses NYC -- you live there, right)? (edited) 7y
NCNY @ValerieAndBooks Yes. I live in Queens. When people say it's "the next Brooklyn" I shudder. 7y
Leftcoastzen @ValerieAndBooks I lived in San Francisco in the 1990s . Enough said 7y
ValerieAndBooks @NCNY In the NYC section, the author talks more about Manhattan and Brooklyn than Queens, but you'd still definitely get a lot from this book! 7y
ValerieAndBooks @Leftcoastzen eek, that's about when it started getting really crazy in SF gentrification wise. It's one of the cities the author focuses on, but I'm familiar as I am from Northern CA (Sacramento) and have family in the Bay Area. 7y
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ValerieAndBooks
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The section on the gentrification of a very small area of Detroit (7.2 square miles, out of 142 square miles) while allowing the rest of the city to continue to be extremely poor and blighted was very eye-opening and sad. I lived near Detroit from 1990-2006 and disappointed to find that there is still so much of it that hasn't improved after all. Why pour money in such a small area, when the money could be spread out across the whole city?

MrBook 😧😕 7y
BookBabe Wow, fascinating. Would you believe I spent hours—HOURS!—virtually walking the streets of Detroit when I was reading Middlesex? I was so intrigued by that city. 7y
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ValerieAndBooks
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"....Later, as the suburbs were built out, developers had to search for new ways to revitalize their profit rate, and both gentrification and exurbanization were part of this search". Library book I'm reading that analyzes gentrification using 4 cities as case studies: New Orleans, Detroit, San Francisco, NYC. Thought-provoking so far.

Izai.Amorim Gentrification is killing most good places to live. Worse is what I call "gentri-desertification": rich people buying flats to use for a only few weeks a year. Empty flats, less people living in the neighborhood, stores and restaurants losing customers, downward spiral. Very bad in London. ? 7y
ValerieAndBooks @Izai.Amorim ?the author states that this is happening in parts of NYC and San Francisco as well, where units are vacant most of the year -- they "cease being places to live a normal life, with work and home and school and community spaces, and become luxury commodities ". 7y
Izai.Amorim @ValerieAndBooks That's a problem that the market economy can't solve, only make worse. We need regulations to change it. Like taxing empty apartments so high that it's not worth keeping them. I'm going to read this book! 7y
ValerieAndBooks @Izai.Amorim it might be hard to prove an apartment is empty but I get what you mean. No easy answers overall. I'm seriously considering buying this for myself after I return this from the library! 7y
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Hooked_on_books
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Pickpick

This terrific, informative, readable book explores the downsides of gentrification, including the displacement of large groups of people, systemic racism, and the fundamental alteration of cities. Living in a rural area, I hadn't looked at gentrification this way and really appreciate having my eyes opened. A must read for any city dweller.

Kristy_K Perfect timing. I was just looking for a book about gentrification. 7y
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Cody
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#currentlyreading this book for next spring! I think it's going to be the talk of the town. it's a mix of investigative journalism, urban studies, and personal history/memoir, making it very accessible.
#nonfiction #gentrification #neworleans #newyork #detroit #sanfrancisco

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