Affordable Housing in New York: The People, Places, and Policies That Transformed a City

by Nicholas Dagen Bloom (Editor), Matthew Gordon Lasner (Editor)

How has America’s most expensive and progressive city helped its residents to live? Since the nineteenth century, the need for high-quality affordable housing has been one of New York City’s most urgent issues. Affordable Housing in New York explores the past, present, and future of the city’s pioneering efforts, from the 1920s to the major initiatives of Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The book examines the people, places, and policies that have helped make New York livable, from early experiments by housing reformers and the innovative public-private solutions of the 1970s and 1980s to today’s professionalized affordable housing industry. More than two dozen leading scholars tell the story of key figures of the era, including Fiorello LaGuardia, Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs, and Ed Koch.

Over twenty-five individual housing complexes are profiled, including Queensbridge Houses, America’s largest public housing complex; Stuyvesant Town; Co-op City; and recent additions like Via Verde. Plans, models, archival photos, and newly commissioned portraits of buildings and tenants put the efforts of the past century into social, political, and cultural context and look ahead to future prospects for below-market subsidized housing.

A richly illustrated, dynamic portrait of an evolving city, this is a comprehensive and authoritative history of public and middle-income housing in New York and contributes significantly to contemporary debates on how to enable future generations of New Yorkers to call the city home.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Urbanism, New York, Urban Planning, Cities

336 pages, Hardcover

First published November 17, 2015

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative, useful book with lots of illustrations, but it's written sort of encyclopedia-style by a lot of different authors, so it is probably best as a reference book and not as a book you pick up and read from beginning to end.

[Lukas Novotny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding guide through history of public housing in New York City. It's well illustrated with both historic and present photos and materials. Special focus is dedicated to unit layouts, which are represented by blueprints and even 3d models. The book is formed from essays by different authors and so is more a reference book rather than casual read (as the other review mentions).