How to Kill a City

Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood

By: Peter Moskowitz

Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins

Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

The term gentrification has become a buzzword to describe the changes in urban neighborhoods across the country, but we don't realize just how threatening it is. It means more than the arrival of trendy shops, much-maligned hipsters, and expensive lattes. The very future of American cities as vibrant, equitable spaces hangs in the balance.

Peter Moskowitz's How to Kill a City takes listeners from the kitchen tables of hurting families who can no longer afford their homes to the corporate boardrooms and political backrooms where destructive housing policies are devised. Along the way, Moskowitz uncovers the massive, systemic forces behind gentrification in New Orleans, Detroit, San Francisco, and New York. The deceptively simple question of who can and cannot afford to pay the rent goes to the heart of America's crises of race and inequality. In the fight for economic opportunity and racial justice, nothing could be more important than housing.

A vigorous, hard-hitting expose, How to Kill a City reveals who holds power in our cities - and how we can get it back.

©2017 Peter Moskowitz (P)2017 Tantor

Critic reviews

"[An] exacting look at gentrification.... How to Kill a City elucidates the complex interplay between the forces we control and those that control us." ( New York Times Book Review)

Unproductive criticism.

You have to endure hours of complaining before you get to anything actionable in the last 30 minutes of the book. There is some value added in better understanding gentrification, but in the process, you're made to feel guilty about going for a latte or choosing to move into a more urban neighborhood you can actually afford. I would have liked to have learned more about what good policy looks like by maybe offering a positive example in contrast to the four negative case studies.

Speaks to my life

This book speaks to my life experiences like no other book that I've heard before. I found it thoroughly enjoying and very enlightening the current housing situation in the United States

Pretty good!

I didn't expect it to be so straight forward. This book definitely tackles the political aspects of gentrification head on. I highly recommend.

difficult read

struggled through it
not recommended for those wanting an unbiased or balanced view of the subject

LOVE THIS BOOK

As a city person, this book made me angry and brought tears to my eyes. I've been to the 4 cities and lived in 2.
written and read beautifully. I wish I could claim it as my work. Bravo!

Very informative with both style and substance! Touched on subjects too often ignored or overlooked!

Disturbing, stirring, albeit cursory.

This shook me a bit. Left me with the queasy questions, "Why did I fall in love with my city neighborhood?" "Are those reasons real? Honest? Good?" It's a bit in love with its own thesis, and the analysis feels sometimes skimpy. But the punches that land, they bruise. Important reading.

Great listen

Good listen with a nice voice. I enjoyed learning more about gentrification and this book is filled with new info.

Compelling! Need to read

This book is an important contribution to the conversation around how we shape our communities—not only our cities. It challenges the reader to consider hard realities that our systems are built upon and provides some strategies for moving forward together.

Organized, succinct analysis, great story

Wonderful balance of analysis, interviews and story telling. Compelling and interesting read, would recommend for anyone tired of the same old commentary on gentrification and would like to hear a bit more umpf behind this concern.