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In New York, there is growing momentum around the activist slogan “Not For Sale.” It is chanted at rallies and plastered over posters for posh new developments. In early 2016, a network of activists called “New York City Not for Sale” released a five-point platform that is, ultimately, a radical an…

Where manufacturing capital dominates, the industrial workplace becomes a main site of struggle and the union movement the leading voice of labor. Where real estate is the dominant sect of capital, however, the importance of a strong and dedicated housing, tenant and anti-gentrification movement in…

To beef up the stock of such land and properties, cities can adopt policies that facilitate the transfer of private land to the public.14 When property owners fail to pay taxes, cities can stop selling liens to speculators, as New York City currently does, and instead transfer tax-deficient propert…

This should not have come as a surprise. Simply adding housing supply does not necessarily drive down overall prices. In many cases, it does the opposite, since developers almost always build for the top of the market, not for the greatest need; real estate functions as plural—rather than singular—…

By choice or by force, planners use gentrification to create the physical environments for capital to thrive. It is the process by which cities seek capital, and capital seeks land. Its endgame is a city controlled by bankers and developers, run like a corporation, designed as a luxury product and …