How to Kill a City

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On this episode, Kumars and Roqayah are joined by two very special guests: Peter Moskowitz, New York-based journalist and author, and Shanti Singh, a housing rights activist in San Francisco and a leader of SF DSA’s newly launched Housing Committee. We go deep into the issue of gentrification as it is explored in Peter’s powerful new book How to Kill a City. Using the cities of New Orleans, New York, Detroit, and San Francisco as examples, Peter guides us through the many stages of gentrification, from the arrival of the first gentrifiers seeking out a cheaper home to global corporate real estate speculators buying entire neighborhoods. Peter describes how this process eventually transforms working-class communities into stretches of usually vacant vacation properties for the world's mega-elite. Shanti describes her experiences combating gentrification in San Francisco, where gentrification is especially pervasive and destructive, and where activists have relatively few tools at their disposal for fighting back. We discuss how government policies exacerbate housing scarcity and drive prices ever-increasingly higher, disproportionately driving people of color and poor people from neighborhoods they've called home for decades. Gentrification is not an issue that is only impacting coastal elite cities like San Francisco and New York, it is only a matter of time until it comes to a neighborhood near you (if it hasn't already). Peter and Shanti argue that housing is a universal right that should become a bigger priority for left organizers.

You can follow Shanti on twitter at @uhshanti. Follow Peter at @ptrmsk.