Capital City, Samuel Stein
Capital City, Samuel Stein
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Capital City
Gentrification and the Real Estate State

Author: Samuel Stein

Narrator: Emily Beresford

Unabridged: 5 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/25/2019

Synopsis

Our cities are changing. Around the world, more and more money is being invested in buildings and land. Real estate is now a $217 trillion-dollar industry, worth thirty-six times the value of all the gold ever mined. It forms sixty percent of global assets, and one of the most powerful people in the world—the president of the United States—made his name as a landlord and developer.

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. 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 explains the role of planners in the real estate state, as well as the remarkable power of planning to reclaim urban life.

About Samuel Stein

Samuel Stein studies geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and teaches urban studies at Hunter College. His writing on planning politics has been published by Jacobin, the Journal of Urban Affairs, Metropolitics, and many other magazines and journals.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Kevin

Housing Crisis 101... Preamble: --Finally finished reviewing this short book (after the Vancouver Tenants Union invited Stein for a book launch… pre-COVID). This labyrinthian topic requires more careful writing/organization to make accessible, esp. distinguishing between: a) Case study details: much of......more

Goodreads review by M.E.

In "Capital City", Sam Stein has produced an accessible and readable socialist account of real estate development and urban politics. He explains in straight-forward terms why real estate owners and developers are so much more powerful than they used to be, why planners and city governments are forc......more

Goodreads review by Rob

I fucking hate hearing about New York City. Most of the country doesn't live in these AAA, rich-as-Crassus cities, and NYC has a particular complex political/economic/social eco-system. A lot of the examples of the real estate state (itself a clunky phrase I hate) are pulled from the Big Apple and j......more

Goodreads review by Matt

This is a very left-oriented critique of the planning profession, and as a planner, I can't really argue against any of the points made. I would say that the book reads a bit like a very long shit-post about the planning profession and development in north america. The long section about Donald Trum......more

Goodreads review by Conor

This book is excellent. I was far too sanguine about urban liberal "things" like city planning, BIDs, TIFs, etc.--the helpmeets of the young technocrat who thinks that cities are the apotheosis of mankind. What I didn't realize is how ineluctably these things lead to displacement and gentrification,......more

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