"Density activism and affordable housing in high-cost American cities"
The exorbitant costs of urban housing and the widening gap in income inequality are fueling a combative new movement in cities around the world. A growing number of influential activists aren’t waiting for new public housing to be built. Instead, they’re calling for more construction and denser cities in order to increase affordability. Yes to the City offers an in-depth look at the “Yes in My Backyard” (YIMBY) movement. From its origins in San Francisco to its current cadre of activists pushing for new apartment towers in places like Boulder, Austin, and London, Max Holleran explores how urban density, once maligned for its association with overpopulated slums, has become a rallying cry for millennial activists locked out of housing markets and unable to pay high rents.
Max Holleran is Lecturer of Social Policy at the University of Melbourne. His work focuses on the politics of urban development in the US, EU, and Australia, particularly post-socialist privatization, tourism economies, and gentrification. His work has appeared in The New Republic, Washington Post, Times Literary Supplement, Places, Slate, and Aeon. He is the author of Tourism, Urbanization, and the Evolving Periphery of the European Union (2019) and Yes to the City: Millennials and the Fight for Affordable Housing (2022).
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