Reviews

How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood by P.E. Moskowitz

clouds_on_clouds's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.75

Very redundant 

subdue_provide75's review against another edition

informative sad medium-paced

3.0

A good attempt at a modern Jane Jacobs Life and Death. Though a bit left for me at times.

user7589's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

4.5

Explored 4 different cities and their different forms of gentrification. Helped me to understand the ways that politicians and corporations focus on bringing profit to the city, at the expense of its people and public spaces. I especially appreciated the studies on Detroit and New Orleans, and learned the ways that city officials and developers pounced on the aftermath of Katrina to rebrand for more profit and push Black residents out of the city. It helps me to identify my own city’s efforts to push poor people out to make rich people richer. 

breadandmushrooms's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

thedogmother's review against another edition

4.0

I’d be super curious to hear Moskowitz’s analysis of the post-pandemic rent inflation. Rents skyrocketed to a disgusting level this past summer in New York and I think a lot of us were hoping that the pandemic would have the opposite effect. I thought the section about New Orleans was the most interesting in the book.

honeydewqueer's review against another edition

emotional informative slow-paced

4.25

reader1115's review against another edition

hopeful informative inspiring sad fast-paced

5.0

A great book on gentrification in this country. Having just read Jacob's Death and Life of Great American Cities this was a worthy follow-up for the 21st century. There is a growing dissatisfaction with suburbia and car-centric infrastructure, and there are plenty of books about it (Walkable City, Happy City). What this book does well is discuss the racist and related economic mistakes that are being made in this back-to-this-city movement. And if these problems are not addressed we are committing similar mistakes that were made during white flight to the suburbs in the middle of the last century. 

annaruehlow's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

I learned a lot, and the call to action at the end was a great way to tie everything together. 

samipeterson's review against another edition

challenging informative

3.5

aprusko's review

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.75