Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Summer Youngs

Author:   Peter Moskowitz

Genre:  Non-Fiction, History, Sociology, Public Policy

272 pages, published March 7, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

In How to Kill a City, author Peter Moskowitz examines the issue of gentrification through the lens of four cities:  New Orleans, Detroit, San Francisco, and New York.  Moskowitz posits that once the trendy shops, hipsters, and coffee shops arrive, rents and housing prices start to rise, pushing out many long-term residents.  He also chronicles the history of housing discrimination that has led to this situation.

Quotes 

“The hipster narrative about gentrification isn’t necessarily inaccurate—young people are indeed moving to cities and opening craft breweries and wearing tight clothing—but it is misleading in its myopia. Someone who learned about gentrification solely through newspaper articles might come away believing that gentrification is just the culmination of several hundred thousand people’s individual wills to open coffee shops and cute boutiques, grow mustaches and buy records. But those are the signs of gentrification, not its causes.”

My Take

I read How to Kill a City as part of my women’s book group and, when we met to discuss it, it sparked a contentious debate on several issues, including whether gentrification is a good or bad thing.  While I am in the camp that it is generally a good thing for blighted areas to be improved, I can understand the other side of the argument and the challenges facing the displaced populations.  However, I don’t think that there is much that can be done.  Unless you own your property, there is no inherent right to live in a specific location.  The attempt to create a property right for renters through rent control is a proven failure that leads to dilapidated housing and inequitable rents for newcomers to an area.  The lesson from this book is that if want to stay in a certain place, your best option is to be a property owner.