A recent reading for Capital City at a bookstore in Downtown Los Angeles reflected the moment that we’re in.A standing-room crowd of interested urbanists—from planning professionals and academics to activists and neighborhood residents—packed the Last Bookstore to hear Stein and a small panel discuss this book “about planners in cities run by real estate.” By Amanda Boston The process of exclusionary development we know as “gentrification”—and the working-class communities and cultures it displaces—has preoccupied urban residents and other stakeholders for decades. The Verso blog has an excerpt from the new book Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State by Sam Stein, which is part of Verso’s Jacobin book series. New Virus Strain’s Transmissibility to Cause More Deaths: Study, Cyberpunk Maker CD Projekt Sued by Investor Over Botched Launch, The North Carolina Kid Who Cracked YouTube’s Secret Code, N.Y. In the excerpt Stein, who is a geographer, explains how professional urban planners unwittingly function to manage the … Although many urban planners want to solve the housing crisis, redevelopment projects that garner millions or billions of dollars of public subsidies force them into compromises, argues Samuel Stein in his new book Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State (Verso, $17.95). I think it’s important for planners who think differently to get together outside of work and think and strategize about the ways they can be resources to the movements that are challenging their bosses. Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State. | ISBN 9781786636386 Related Products. Mar 12, 2019 Samuel Stein shows that this explosive transformation of urban life and politics has been driven not only by the tastes of wealthy newcomers, but by the state-driven process of urban planning. For Stein—a doctoral candidate in geography at the City University of New York, an instructor at Hunter College, and a trained planner—the question of planning is front and center to understanding our current economic order as experienced in city life. University of California, Santa Cruz. Writer and city planner Samuel Stein first takes a wide-ranging look at the history of discriminatory housing policies and planning strategies in major U.S. cities throughout the 20th century, and then homes in on the gentrification of New York over the past three decades. “[Capital City] alternates a panoptic view with one that looks more closely, from the ground up, at what reckless development does to lives and livelihoods … Explicit in Stein’s narrative is the idea that a different, more democratic kind of planning might lead us to more democratic kinds of cities.” —Nikil Saval, New Yorker It’s manifested in the number-one position in our political hierarchy. I think there’s a strong pragmatic strain in planning, which can be valuable, if it’s about translating radical ideas into an actionable program. This sobering book has to be part of our toolkit as we try to find the moorings for a powerful democratic pushback in local political struggles.” —Frances Fox Piven, co-author of Poor People’s Movements“Want to know why the rent’s so high? London : Verso, 2019 1786636395 9781786636393 (OCoLC)1018049815 “[Capital City] alternates a panoptic view with one that looks more closely, from the ground up, at what reckless development does to lives and livelihoods … Explicit in Stein’s narrative is the idea that a different, more democratic kind of planning might lead us to more democratic kinds of cities.” —Nikil Saval, New Yorker An Imaginative and Action-Packed Adventure, Tieghan Gerard's Guide to a Small but Special Meal at Home, *This title is not eligible for purchase to earn points nor for redemption with your code in the. Not that renting is much easier: Average move-in rents in the U.S. have more than doubled over the past two decades. Samuel Stein’s “ Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State” is available March 12, from Verso Books. But it can also be a dampener on radicalism and visionary thinking, and even utopianism, which is useful too in knowing where we’d want to be if we could. Around the world, more and more money is being invested in buildings and land. There’s been a history of insurgent planners for a long time, with a few different models rising up in the ’60s and ’70s. Why do you think their story helps explain the current dynamic of real estate and politics? I would encourage them to always think critically and not get discouraged. I encourage people to hold onto those impulses, and to find others who think the way they do, or who challenge their own thinking. This is a lively user’s guide to the changing landscape of the American city.”—Peter Marcuse, co-author of In Defense of Housing “[Capital City] alternates a panoptic view with one that looks more closely, from the ground up, at what reckless development does to lives and livelihoods … Explicit in Stein’s narrative is the idea that a different, more democratic kind of planning might lead us to more democratic kinds of cities.”—Nikil Saval, New Yorker“A radical view into the heart of the processes [urban planners] oversee.”—Andrea Gibbons, New Labor Forum“Capital City deserves attention from urban historians for its nuanced analysis of neoliberal urban policy and specific measures that generate inequality and may be also used in service of justice. You discuss a legacy of radical planning, which taught activist planners that “while they may be alone in their workplace, they are not alone in their workforce.”. CityLab asked him about the rise of real estate, radical planners, and how would-be planners should approach the role. This was the culmination of a city-wide study group that took place in five locations across four boroughs. Search for more papers by this author. This book will be a useful tool for a broad swath of people seeking a greater understanding of the urgency of this political moment which grows with every demolition.”—Amanda Boston, The Metropole“Vital and devastating … [Capital City is] unabashed in its advocacy of a more equitable distribution of land and housing … A powerful companion to studies of the global rise of informal cities such as Mike Davis’ Planet of Slums, the racist history of housing in Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law, [and] the horrid effects of losing one’s home in Matthew Desmond’s Evicted.” —Joshua Barnett, New York Labor History Association, Sign up for news about books, authors, and more from Penguin Random House, Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network. Corresponding Author. Samuel Stein, a doctoral student at City University of New York whose work focuses on urban planning and gentrification, takes on that question in his well-received new book, Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State (Verso, 2019). There was the Planner’s Underground, which was a bit more militant movement of planners who were sneaking out information about what their cities were doing to activists and writing anonymous testimonies and letters to the editor. London: Verso Erin McElroy. “Samuel Stein’s lucid explanation for how we got to where we’re at shines urgent light on the origins and development of what he incisively calls ‘the Real Estate State.’ Capital City places gentrification in a structurally extensive and intensive urban geography of dispossession. Have a confidential tip for our reporters? By clicking SIGN UP, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House’s, Editor's Picks: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Stories Read By Your Favorite Celebrities, The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies, The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution, Discover Book Picks from the CEO of Penguin Random House US. His work focuses on the politics of urban planning, with an emphasis on housing, labor, real estate, and gentrification in New York City. (This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.). The Role of Urban Planning in the Maintenance of Capitalism. Erin McElroy. An informal conversation on zoning and displacement with guest Sam Stein, author of “Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State”, Verso 2019, and facilitated by Jenna Davis, a PhD candidate in Urban Planning and a staff project assistant at the GSAPP Housing Lab.. Samuel Stein is a policy analyst and a writer living and working in New York City. Please try again later. All who struggle for the right to the city should read this book, and realize afresh how capitalism saving capitalism from capitalism … PEWG Blog is excited to present a conversation between Adam H from Boston DSA Housing Working Group and Samuel Stein, author of "Capital City" (2019, Verso) on the real estate state & capital, gentrification and the housing crisis, tenant organizing, equitable housing and the Green New Deal, and more! News; Student News; Student Book: Samuel Stein; Samuel Stein Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State (Verso, 2019) Our cities are changing. Samuel Stein 2019: Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State. But I wanted to remind people that it’s not just the abstract real-estate capital that’s gaining in power. Aimed for both a popular audience, movement activists, and urban planners alike, Stein writes a lucid, … Around the world, more and more money is being invested in buildings and land. In the U.S. context, planners are under-appreciated—not just as individuals, but the act of planning is underplayed. By BETH HARPAZ. 365 5th Ave, NY, NY 10016. Print version: Stein, Samuel. “Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State” by Samuel Stein, Verso, 208 pp., $17.95 Samuel Stein will read at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 18, at … Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2019. When you work inside of the system, you tend to be told that certain things are impossible that are actually just undesirable for people in power. 5:30-7:30. We are experiencing technical difficulties. I think there is still a role for this kind of activist urban planner, not just outside the system, but in it. London: Verso Capital City astutely analyses New Y ork City’s urban planning his tories in order I’m trained as a planner, so I understand who they are and what they do, and I do believe that it is an inordinately nice group of people. “Global real estate is now worth $217 trillion, 36 times the value of all the gold ever mined,” writes Samuel Stein — a doctoral candidate in geography at The Graduate Center, CUNY — in his new book, Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State. Y'all have no idea. Check it out below (the interview… The book shines a light on the underlining political dynamic that lies at the heart of our cities and is essential reading for … It makes transparent the mechanisms and tools that officials and developers have so made so rigorously opaque and diffuse over the years. Why do you emphasize the significance of planning in increasingly unequal urban areas? If anything, Stein is on the conservative side compared to many of the authors published similarly. E-mail address: emmcelro@ucsc.edu. Samuel Stein, Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State, London: Verso, 2019. One chapter of the book tracks the real-estate dealings of three generations of the Trump family, boosted at intervals by public policies and incentives seized on for personal profit. Find books There was Planners for Equal Opportunity (PEO), which was trying to link urban planners with the movement against urban renewal. Planning agencies provide a unique window into the ways the state uses and is used by capital, and the means by which urban renovations are translated into rising real estate values and rising rents. Capital City Gentrification and the Real Estate State by Samuel Stein and Publisher Verso Books. Corresponding Author. All who struggle for the right to the city should read this book, and realize afresh how capitalism saving capitalism from capitalism … I think we often want to be able to tell planners why what they’re doing is bad, and then have them do something else, but that’s not how the system is set up. The trick there is not to impose the strictures that are imposed onto us as professional planners, but instead to be a resource to those movements in aiding them in their success. ISBN: 9781786636393 (paper); ISBN: 9781786636386 (ebook) Samuel Stein’s Capital Cityprovides a standout guide to the contemporary political economy of urban development and housing in the United States. You have a chapter dedicated to the real-estate career of the Trump family—not just the president, but also his father and grandfather. For planners and policymakers with an eye towards the future, however, Stein also provides a blueprint. 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