Sam Stein’s Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State offers a blistering and persuasive critique of how real estate dominates city planning—to the detriment of most residents.
“Through his analysis of how these housing policies are warped by their dependence on the real estate market (from which cities hope to leverage some social good), Stein argues persuasively that these “affordable housing plans” are not enough to make cities affordable without further investment on behalf of the most rent-burdened tenants. In some cases, in Stein’s view, affordable housing policies can be reckless and counterproductive, intentionally exploding land values and sparking gentrification in order to fund affordable units with the inflated property taxes.”
When the “filtering” reports and studies- which are funded by real estate developers- are met by actual journalism (which is rare and increasingly not funded by anyone), I trust the journalism. Studies are ALWAYS pushing an agenda.
I looked this up, looks valuable. The brief review hits some high points of our current situation. Thanks.
Increasing supply is essential. Nobody says it is sufficient.
A2Indy The book’s author refutes this assertion, Dan. Do you by any chance have the data that show any increase in rental vacancies in areas (downtown?) where the majority of the new luxury units have been built? Granted, Manhattan isn’t a great market comparison, but using data to determine whether what you’re asserting is actually true would be good, right?