Counterinstitution: Activist Estates of the Lower East Side
by Nandini Bagchee
New York: Fordham University Press, 2018
ISBN: 9780823279265
This book documents the repurposing by political activists of three buildings on New York City’s Lower East Side in the 1960s and ’70s. It explores how social movements, as they take on the characteristics of institutions, confront questions of how to possess and occupy built space. On the one hand, having a physical place—a building—signifies a durability that underscores a group’s power. On the other hand, it means interaction with problems of property management and real-estate finance that threaten to embed groups in a system whose norms they want to resist. I hope that this book will enable me to reflect on my work with a community land trust and to prepare for a studio course I am teaching in the fall that revolves around the terms of engagement between city government and organizations striving to decommodify housing. (Laura Wolf‑Powers)
Non-Design. Architecture, Liberalism, and the Market
by Anthony Fontenot
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2021
ISBN: 9780226686066
As a political economist, I am reasonably well-read in 20th-century economic history: the struggle between state socialism and economic liberalism, the historical evolution of the Keynesian welfare state, and the ultimate rise of neoliberalism to global hegemony—resulting in rampant urban inequalities worldwide. What I am less familiar with, however, is the influence of liberal thought on architecture and design as an important dimension of city-building. This is precisely what architectural historian Anthony Fontenot explores in his book Non-Design: Architecture, Liberalism, and the Market. In this ambitious volume, Fontenot traces the theoretical and intellectual affinities between key tenets of liberal thought, particularly the work of Friedrich von Hayek and the Austrian School of Economics, its rejection of scientific Marxism and rationalist state planning, and various design and architecture movements in the United Kingdom and the United States during the second half of the 20th century. These movements were equally critical of modernist architecture and design and top-down city planning. Beyond the intellectual pleasure of learning about liberalism’s influence on architecture and design, I believe the book has political urgency in this moment when market- and community-based approaches to urban development are often framed as lacking any viable, state-led alternatives. (Ahmed Allahwala)
Home Truths: Fixing Canada’s Housing Crisis
by Carolyn Whitzman
Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2024
ISBN: 9780774890700
With an expansive investigation into the Canadian housing crisis, Whitzman plainly shows how years of government (in)action created the present situation. Drawing examples from several other countries, she stresses the role and need of non-market housing in addressing housing insecurity. Years of market-oriented policies and government inaction have made housing unaffordable for Canadians across all income levels. While once lauded for its focus on social housing, Canada has dipped in its ability to produce housing at levels affordable to households. Whitzman focuses on what has worked in the past while developing insights from cases in other countries. Whether it’s how to build housing faster to increasing the country’s share of non-market housing, Whitzman gives some compelling solutions to today’s problems. The approachable writing style weaves nicely between personal anecdotes and discussions on governance and policy. By personalizing it in this way, the book is positioned to reach a much broader audience than the typical academic. Nevertheless, it doesn’t lose its level of rigor for prose. With a recent change in government and housing being a top political issue, we will see if policymakers take heed. (Prentiss Dantzler)
The Manufacutring of Job Displacement: How Racial Capitalism Drives Immigrant and Gender Inequality in the Labor Market
by Laura López-Sanders
New York: New York University Press, 2024
ISBN: 9781479822997
I’m excited to read this book because too often the study of immigrant labor markets talks about “niches” and “enclaves” without a deep dive into how the demand for immigrant labor plays the central role in driving the places in which immigrants fit in the American labor market. There are some ethical concerns, perhaps, about López‑Sanders playing an active role in violating civil-rights law, but I am withholding any judgement about that issue until I read it. (James DeFilippis)
Plundered: How Racist Policies Undermine Black Homeownership in America
by Bernadette Atuahene
New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2025
ISBN: 9780316572217
This book describes how “predatory governance” in Detroit stripped wealth from longtime Black homeowners, beginning with the first years of the Great Migrations from the US South in the 1920s, and then focusing on property tax assessments and collection in more recent decades. It mixes ethnography with historical and legal research to uncover the complexity of these situations with attention to the experiences of the people who have suffered. It’s unfortunately not an unusual story, but one that has not been told nearly enough, and serves as an important corrective to celebrations of Detroit’s rebirth. (Hilary Botein)
Messy Cities: Why We Can’t Plan Everything
edited by Dylan Reid, Zahra Ebrahim, Leslie Woo, and John Lorinc
Toronto: Coach House Books, 2025
ISBN: 9781552455036
The latest edited volume out of Toronto’s Coach House Books deals with “the tension between order and disorder” that makes cities at once exciting places to live and work, and difficult to govern. This book takes the vantage of planning: a practice of guiding urban spaces towards the future, through rules and codes. It describes what happens when planning falls apart, or what flourishes in the spaces that are (officially, at least) unplanned. While Toronto forms the geographical core of this volume, the authors write on cities across the globe, with a smart, informed but not overly academic tone. Some narrate from first person experiences, while others write in their practitioner roles. I think this way of thinking has a lot to offer, particularly in my own field of public space. (Naomi Adiv)
The Battle for the Black Mind
by Karida L. Brown
New York: Legacy Lit, 2025
ISBN: 9781538768433
This summer, I’m looking forward to reading sociologist and Emory University professor Karida Brown’s The Battle for the Black Mind. Brown, an award-winning sociologist of race, racism, culture, and DuBoisian sociology, provides a historical and contemporary account of one domain of Black liberation—Black educational freedom, or how Black Americans have educated and continue to educate themselves in the face of ongoing racism and oppression. Given the ongoing attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and critical race theory, leveled particularly at Black Americans, such a book is undoubtedly relevant and crucial. (Jean Beaman)
