Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State

by Samuel Stein

“This superbly succinct and incisive book” on urban planning and real estate argues gentrification isn’t driven by latte-sipping hipsters—but is engineered by the capitalist state (Michael Sorkin, author of All Over the Map )

Our cities are changing. Around the world, more and more money is being invested in buildings and land. Real estate is now a $217 trillion dollar industry, worth thirty-six times the value of all the gold ever mined. It forms sixty percent of global assets, and one of the most powerful people in the world—the former president of the United States—made his name as a landlord and developer.

Samuel Stein shows that this explosive transformation of urban life and politics has been driven not only by the tastes of wealthy newcomers, but by the state-driven process of urban planning. Planning agencies provide a unique window into the ways the state uses and is used by capital, and the means by which urban renovations are translated into rising real estate values and rising rents.

Capital City explains the role of planners in the real estate state, as well as the remarkable power of planning to reclaim urban life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Urban Planning, Economics, Urbanism, Cities, Sociology

202 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2019

Reviews

[Sunny Lu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of one-liners that are absolute bangers. City planning isn’t something I’ve thought about deeply as an actual profession people work in, but this book mapped out the challenges they face in a real way. Constructing arguments against capitalist real estate acquisition and development with more subtle challenges towards things like participatory planning/community forums and engagement, Stein offers a close analysis of the housing crisis and those who profit from it. Necessary reading for anyone who cares about the crises cities are facing.

[The Conspiracy is Capitalism · Rating 4 out of 5]

Housing Crisis 101...

Preamble:
--Finally finished reviewing this short book (after the Vancouver Tenants Union invited Stein for a book launch… pre-COVID). This labyrinthian topic requires more careful writing/organization to make accessible, esp. distinguishing between:
a) Case study details: much of this book is buried in planning minutia/case studies, vs.
b) Big picture structures/priorities: my review’s focus.
--Thus, my go-to intro remains Ryan-Collin’s Why Can't You Afford a Home? for unpacking “real estate”, i.e. capitalism turning land into a commodity for buying/selling in the land market; markets are one-dollar-one-vote, where:
a) market “exchange-value” (with the richest engaging in short-term speculation/absentee hoarding/passive income rent-seeking) triumphs over
b) social “use-value” (access to housing, a foundational human need)

Highlights:

1) State Planning: managing Capitalism’s Contradictions:
--Markets for “real commodities” (goods produced for buying/selling, with an obvious cost of production; think of Adam Smith’s “butchers, bakers, and brewers” in his overused self-interest-produces-social-good quote) have long existed (“societies with markets”): Debt: The First 5,000 Years
--“Capitalism”, as a “market society”, features 3 peculiar markets (land/labour/money) for “fictitious commodities” (nature/humans/purchasing power) which are not produced (with an obvious cost of production) just for buying/selling.
…These capitalist markets have from their inception required State violence to create and perpetuate (the paradox of capitalism’s market planning): “enclosures” against “commons” to privatize land, where the dispossessed have nothing left but to sell their labour and get into debt, with the State policing these capitalist property rights: Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails
…Thus, “capitalism” has always been “state capitalism”, with the “free market” (esp. for these capitalist markets, after centuries of capitalist experiments) being more illusory than “communism” (classless society, which was the majority of human existence as hunter-gatherers, and only pursued by feudal/colonized states in the 20th century).
--The book’s big picture starts here: Stein references Richard E. Foglesong on 2 of capitalism’s many contradictions, which State planning must manage:

i) Property contradiction:
--Capitalists (goal: private profit) rely on (public) infrastructure (physical and social), but different capitalists have contradicting needs:
a) Industrial capitalists: since their business produces “real commodities” (think Smith’s pin factory focusing on division of labour, or even better Marx’s mechanized factory), their incentive is to lower their cost of production. Real estate rent is a parasitic overhead on industrial profits, both directly (factory rent costs) and indirectly (workers paying high rents for housing require higher wages!).
…so, Industrial capitalists are more willing to compromise with worker demands (if sufficiently organized) for policies to reduce real estate rents for affordable housing (public housing/rent control etc.). This incentive was foundational to Classical liberalism’s (Smith/Ricardo) view that the developing (industrial) capitalism was a progressive force for society against feudalism’s rent-seeking (“landlords”), a notion shared by early Marxism: Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy
…for a conflicting origins narrative on how peasants were already eroding feudalism, with capitalism being a reactionary backlash to revive elite accumulation, see: Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (which references: The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation and Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation).
…meanwhile, Industrial capitalists lobby against environmental protection regulation, since they don’t want to pay for their factories’ pollution.
b) Real Estate capitalists: since their entire business model relies on higher land prices/rent-seeking, they obviously lobby against affordable housing. As a “fictitious commodity” mostly already produced by nature, market competition focuses on monopolizing ownership of this scarce resource rather than innovating to reduce cost of production, which is why Classical liberal economists like Adam Smith/David Ricardo saw landlord rent as a parasitic threat to industrial profits.
…within Real Estate, there are further divisions: ex. owners vs. builders. Meanwhile, Real Estate capitalists may be more willing to support environmental regulation if it improves property value.
--This comparison reveals a structural shift behind “Neoliberalism”. As Industrial capitalists in the West (esp. US/UK) diminished (profit squeeze/outsourcing), there was no counterweight vs. Real Estate capitalists. Finance capitalists absorbed Real Estate; expanding home ownership required mortgages, and ballooning property value fuelled financial speculation: The Bubble and Beyond
--With this Neoliberalism shift, state planning became more dependent on increasing property value (globally-traded financial asset) with prior social protections dismantled; since much real estate planning is on the municipal level, funding became increasingly tied to property taxes and municipal bonds. One-dollar-one-vote incentivizes gentrification, trying to lure luxury development (subsidized) while driving out everything/everyone who do not maximize raising property value. Like healthcare, education, etc., this is what happens when a social need is organized through capitalist markets: access for the many evaporates while costs/short-term gains balloon for the few from rent-seeking/speculation.
--Market volatility minus social protection is truly a lose-lose for the many when the (fictitious) commodity is a long-term social need like housing (we aren’t buying trendy gadgets to be replaced shortly):
a) Inflation: rising (asset) prices/rents leads to evictions. Note: this “asset price inflation” is distinct from fear-mongering over inflation from state spending on social services.
b) Deflation: disinvestment leads to disrepair; residents also lose access to credit.
…ex. tenants are forced to support dangerous disrepair, since renovations raise prices leading to “renovictions”.

ii) Democracy contradiction:
--Political “democracy” (one-person-one-vote) vs. economic plutocracy (one-dollar-one-vote, in the market).
--Stein provides a nice summary of the history of US planning, from its roots in settler colonialism planning indigenous genocide/assimilation, to progressive reformism (mid-19th to 20th century industrialization/urbanization, leading to the “planner” profession, “Municipal Socialism”, “City Beautiful”, “City Practical”), post-WWII planning (including “redlining”/“urban renewal), advocacy planning, incremental planning (Neoliberalism, including 1990’s shift of property ownership as financial product), etc. Case studies include New York and Trump.

…see comments below (message #8 and #9) for the rest of the review (“Ending the Housing Crisis”)...

[M.E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In "Capital City", Sam Stein has produced an accessible and readable socialist account of real estate development and urban politics. He explains in straight-forward terms why real estate owners and developers are so much more powerful than they used to be, why planners and city governments are forced to cater to their needs, and the terrible things this does to cities and people's lives. Unlike many introductory accounts of gentrification, Stein does an excellent job recognizing the importance of cycles of disinvestment and re-investment, the role of impersonal market forces, and the changing dynamics of global capitalism that facilitate and accelerate gentrification. For those familiar with Marxist and left political economies of urban real estate, the book offers a few under-documented insights—such as how inclusionary zoning with affordable housing developments can actually work to drastically reduce the amount of affordable housing in a neighborhood. Stein's critique of planning is particularly insightful account of the limits of progressive state officials under capitalism, and the contradictions of progressive liberalism. Stein closes out with some general policy recommendations working towards socialist, decommodified housing, which he recognizes as necessarily depending on popular tenant organizing.

I would have liked the material on planning reduced, and replaced with some clear analysis about the class dynamics of tenant rebellions, and the sorts of dynamics that could enable the consolidation and strengthening of tenant power. Stein says little about the landscape of tenants rights organizations, and what the contradictions and limits of what they are able to accomplish. Nor does he provide even a brief historical sketch of the moments where tenant insurgency has won real gains. It is clear he knows all this and references it, but not with the clarity and precision I would have liked. Stein dodges the contentious and unresolved questions of Marxist urban political economy, such as the extent to which landowners constitute a distinct class, if financialization actually constitutes a distinct moment of capitalism with new laws of motion, if there are limits to the current hyper-gentrification of cities, or or what produces the mass tenant rebellions of the past. Stein provides an excellent summation for why industrial capital was a counter-weight to real estate owning interests in cities when they were centers of manufacturing interests, but is a lot less plausible in suggesting cities could become manufacturing centers again. The book also has surprisingly little about the role of anti-black racism in gentrification and landlord strategies, and garnering white support for major development projects. I imagine Stein will be grappling with some of these questions in his current dissertation, which will hopefully soon become an academic book.

In New York City, communists are using Stein's book in a series of study groups, trying to cohere a pole of the housing movement to the left of the many non-profit organizations working on the issue. This is an extremely exciting and positive development for the tenant movement, and Stein's book is a good choice for collective study. I highly recommend it.

[Rob Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I fucking hate hearing about New York City. Most of the country doesn't live in these AAA, rich-as-Crassus cities, and NYC has a particular complex political/economic/social eco-system. A lot of the examples of the real estate state (itself a clunky phrase I hate) are pulled from the Big Apple and just aren't doable in your small town, mid-size regional cities.

It's a solid book overall tho. The information is solid, necessary and breaks down complex economic and political factors into an easy to read format. It's second chapter is one of the best analyses and explainations of gentrification I've seen in print. The third chapter on the bi-partisan support of gentrification policies between billionaire mayor who thinks he's a king, Michael Bloomberg and current Mayor De Blasio is excellent. The chapter on the Trump family is good in showing how rich families historically always exploit laws and loopholes for their personal gain. These chapters aren't bad, I find it rehashs a lot of insular circumstances that really only apply to the weird Lovecraftian hybrid that is New York City.

I live outside the Providence metro area in Rhode Island, for example. I can pinpoint two or three big or well-known real estate groups that defintely use some of the processes described in chapter two, but probably not similar examples to those found in chapters three and four.

Along with the chapter on gentrification, I especially enjoyed the final chapter detailing actual socialist solutions to de-commodify the housing market. I really wish the stuff on NYC was shortened or excised into a separate book entirely, and the author focused on gentrification and socialist responses to it. Stein details a number of interesting policies and ways to completely de-center our current approach to (private) property. I want to know more about community land trusts, first-right-of-refusal laws, and co-operatives.

Two more complaints: I find Samuel Stein overestimates the importance of planners, and under-emphasizes urban grassroots movements, and secondly his citations are all over the place. I was a history major in college, so his overuse of ibid and his random citing of particular sentences comes off as... bad. Page 122 (Chapter 4) has three ibids in a row, two more on the succeeding page, and the last citation on page 121 is also an ibid. Changing these to endnotes who remove this footer clutter and make the book look more professional and less like a thesis paper. Also an index would be helpful. The citations are a minor issue, and won't detract anyone from enjoying the work.

If you haven't read anything about gentrification and urbanism before, this book is a good start. And to be fair, this is the entire point of the Jacobin/Verso line of these books. However if you want more than just a baseline introduction, or something more firmly about socialism, you're better off reading something else. Most books on urban studies already disproportionately zero in on New York City, and it would've been nice if instead it focused on other cities and historical examples.

[Matt Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very left-oriented critique of the planning profession, and as a planner, I can't really argue against any of the points made. I would say that the book reads a bit like a very long shit-post about the planning profession and development in north america. The long section about Donald Trump's family serves as an example of how one family was able to exploit the planning and development industry for their own benefit, but Trump is obviously a unique case. There are many more landlords and developers who probably get away with much worse with less publicity. A lot of the programs and incentives used by the Trumps weren't originated by planners though. These tax breaks and loans tend to come from politicians, lobbyists, economists, etc. a lot of the examples given would not be held up by any planner as a good idea.

Overall though, this book is a good slap in the face to any planner. We should consider how we facilitate harmful types of development and we should work to avoid displacement and exploitation. Planning began with defence and public health at its centre, but this book shows how we have prioritized economic growth and increasing (or maintaining) property values instead. I agree that we should reorient our profession.

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes sophisticated, but on balance wrong. The basic theory of the book is: building housing (other than public housing) is bad because landlords will see how much new housing costs and raise rents to match it. So vacant lots are good (especially in poor neighborhoods) and new housing is bad.

There is an inconvenient fact that is inconsistent with this theory- cities that built a lot of new housing, like Charlotte and Houston, tend to be much cheaper than New York (which, because it elects socialists like Stein and "Not In My Back Yard" nonsocialists) doesn't build a lot of housing.

Smith repeats the common error that New York has tried allowing new housing, without favorable results. He writes that “[s]imply adding housing supply does not necessarily drive down overall prices” because some neighborhoods were upzoned in recent decades yet rents rose. In other words, Stein argues: (1) some new housing supply was created; (2) housing costs rose; thus (3) new housing supply doesn’t hold down costs.

This argument is flawed because “some new housing supply” does not mean “enough housing supply to meet demand.” Stein writes that 69,000 new housing units were built in New York City between 2014 and 2017- that is, just over 17,000 per year. But according to a recent study by the Department of City Planning, the city added 700,000 new jobs, or 70,000 per year, between 2009 and 2018. Thus, Stein’s own data shows that housing supply lags behind the supply of jobs.

Moreover, New York's level of housing production is hardly high by historical standards. According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 633,816 of the city’s housing units were built between 1960 and 1979- or over 30,000 per year, far more than in the alleged boom years of the past decade. 761,112 units were built between 1940 and 1959- or about 40,000 per year. And these numbers actually underestimate the pace of midcentury building, because some unknown number of 1940-79 buildings have been demolished or converted to nonresidential use.

[Conor Ahern · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is excellent. I was far too sanguine about urban liberal "things" like city planning, BIDs, TIFs, etc.--the helpmeets of the young technocrat who thinks that cities are the apotheosis of mankind. What I didn't realize is how ineluctably these things lead to displacement and gentrification, the continuous erosion of the city as pastiche and into a play land for the elite rich.

While I enjoyed having my assumptions and beliefs challenged, I didn't find the author's solutions very compelling. When you're told that investment in communities is bad because it leads to gentrification, and that disinvestment is bad because it starves communities of resources, you feel like you're being set up for some comprehensive, achievable solution. But the solutions he posits--community home ownership, Havana-style--seem at best impossible and at worst just naive. Havana is not a place I would describe as one where people are happy with housing allocations, and I say that having interviewed dozens of Habaneros a few years back.

Regardless, this book is pithy and extremely smart. I'd recommend it to anyone trying to understand how cities work, which equities and constituencies are being served by which policies, and which of your biases toward urban policy you want to maintain having read what Stein has to say.

[Gabriella · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely helpful crash course on the rise of the real estate state, "a political formation in which real estate capital has inordinate influence over the shape of our cities, the parameters of our politics, and the lives we lead." As an (aspiring? practicing?) planner who has only ever lived and worked in the real estate state, it is helpful to read a book that is able to adequately assess these conditions and the challenges they pose for planners, without resigning to them.

The main challenge: in our current capitalist system, nearly every public investment that planners can make can be leveraged into private gain, due to increased land values thanks to these "investments." This, of course, is key to gentrification, which Stein calls "a spatial fix to cities' capital crisis" and "the third stage in a long-term process of capital flow in and out of space."

This is a really helpful reorientation for me, as I am learning to articulate my concerns with the way my job does planning. Many times, I (and many of my left-leaning colleagues) are working through reservations that our bosses are telling us to use the same strategies that led to inequitable outcomes in one city, while expecting they'll work differently in "secondary markets." Sam Stein's work is helpful because it provides alternative strategies (reordered regionalism, socialized land, public stewardship) that planners could use to actually break the wheel altogether. Without these alternatives, even well-meaning, "equitable" initiatives like neighborhood reinvestment (owner-occupied rehab, code enforcement aimed at ending slumlords, and other strategies to help "build self-sustaining housing markets" in disinvested neighborhoods that are not gentrifying) are not enough, and are in fact continuing the speculative development cycle, by promoting what Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor would call "predatory inclusion."

Moving away from predatory inclusion and towards community control (aka "the pivot towards socialized planning") is exactly what I'm hoping to learn. While this book provides a lot of aspirational policy objectives (many of which planners don't have the authority to control), it also proposes the role of planners in supporting peoples' movements through our work, and gives us tangible steps to get there (such as through securing funding and implementation support for "demonstration projects" that help people see the benefits of socialized planning.) I am excited to keep learning about (and begin practicing!) socialized planning from community members and organizers, practitioner role models in the field, and academics like Sam Stein.

[Aarav Balsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who is quite uninformed about the intricacies of real-estate and urban planning, I found this book tremendously eye-opening. The book is broadly divided into:
- what is urban planning?
- how is real estate measured/valued?
- how urban planners are ultimately beholden to the fluctuations and dictatorship of real estate values (the latter having evolved into a financial instrument speculated upon by a transnational capitalist class)
- a history of the displacement of working-class demographics by planners (largely at the intersection of class and race) through the process of gentrification
- the ascendance of a real estate president and how this signifies the coalescence of real estate interests in the political sphere
- alternatives to the current system which can provide public, socialized land for urban workers and create thriving communities

Highly informative, and provides the reader with a framework (informed by socialism) to analyze the toxicity of the real estate state and what communities could potentially be. Great first book for someone who wants to understand the driving factors of gentrification.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sam Stein clearly and articulately lays out how and why our cities are gentrifying because of real estate being the most powerful force in the world's economy. With crazy rents, rich people and developers taking over every major city, it's nice to have an incredibly clear and specific description of the political and historical complexities of city planning and gentrification that pinpoints specific laws and moments in history when policies and programs where made that oppress working class folks.

Capital City is short and sweet, frustrating and inspiring in equal measure and an absolute must-read for anyone who cares about an equitable future for our cities.

[Steffi · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Capital City - Gentrification and the Real Estate State’ by Samuel Stein (VERSO, 2019) is an exceptionally interesting read on the origins of the ‘real estate state’ and an urban geography of dispossession aka gentrification.

A few key take-aways: the phenomenon of turning cities from places into commodities and associates dispossession must be understood within the contrxt of the decline and literal retreat of manufacturing/ industrial capital and the outsized power of real estate and finance interests within the state. I guess what you’d call financialization of capitalism. Urban real estate plays a central role in global capital growth: real estate is now a $217 trillion dollar industry, it forms sixty percent of global assets.

The book is written from the perspective of a city planner highlighting their very limited role to challenge the current state of an urban race to the bottom, where towns and cities compete for real estate investment through tax incentives, where public investments in poorer neighbourhoods almost always lead to a rise in land value and the ‘rent gap’ and a new cycle of dispossession.
Of course, the large scale privatization of public land and housing is part and parcel of this commodification of cities.

The solutions are not too tricky: democratization of town planning and decommodification of land and housing. There are already some successful examples of people taking back their neighbourhoods and towns (eg radical municipalities) but this would also require a much bigger political shift within the bigger context of democratizing and decommodifying essential services such as health, education.

There’s also an interesting chapter on the sell-out and commodification of this nightmarish and unaffordable, former working class city called NYC and of course the rise to political power of its developers and real estate tycoons, personified in outgoing President Trump.

PS: there was a recent The Dig podcast interview with the author if you don’t have the time to read the book.

[Coby Lefkowitz · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book supposedly focuses on urban planning’s role in the real estate state. But this is not an analysis of planning and real estate. It’s an ideological campaign against the structures of capitalism, with New York real estate as a case study. This on its own wouldn’t be uncompelling, but it’s not as well executed as one might’ve hoped for. It’s an often scatterbrained collection of words that bounce from one half thought to another, with “capitalism”, “gentrification” and “planner” thrown about errantly, and often with contradictions.

The narrow view of New York is unfortunate as I think the author could’ve explored interesting macro planning themes, but instead gets wrapped up in a crusade against global capital and prevailing conditions that aren’t quite applicable to most places outside of the 5 boroughs. New York has so many unique elements that are without parallel in the world, perhaps save London, that the fundamental premise and subject of this book, then, feel misapplied.

There are times where this author is so head scratchingly obstinate that it makes it difficult to read. His obsession with planners not retaining industrial/manufacturing jobs, and actively advocating for their return to New York, is maddening in its aloofness. Stein seems little concerned that globalized supply chains and cheaper labor drove decisions to move industry out of the city/country, and that they’re not coming back. Planners have little control over this. He hardheadedly pins this as one of three main solutions to solving the challenges faced by cities today, which is absurd. (Where would these factories go without displacing people in built out cities? Who would take these jobs, in a service based economy? How would the operations be supportable today, when the conditions that led to deindustrialization in superstar cities are 100x more prominent today than when they left?). Besides his desire to contort the current state of cities into his chosen ideological lens, it’s not clear why this occupies his attention. No serious economic development analysis would come to this conclusion.

At times the logic imposed is stunning. Whether capitalist or socialist, it requires money to build and maintain properties, and provide essential improvements to offer quality of life considerations for all groups, but most importantly marginalized groups. We can’t merely hope that things will work themselves out because of purity of ideology. We don’t have the luxury to theorize the challenges people face today. Besides, many of those people who his suggestions would impact want investment, aspire to own property, and mobilize themselves economically. This reality doesn’t fit neatly with the authors world view, and as such is not considered.

His “real estate state” amazingly doesn’t include what he calls “mortgage holders”. He identifies homeowners as continuing to organize collectively against real estate’s rule. This is nonsense. Homeowners ARE the rulers of real estate. In the US, homeowners control 36 trillion dollars of value, considerably more than double commercial value. Homeowners control local development processes through public review/comment, taking zoning system hostage, and electing public officials who protect the value of their single family homes at the expense of renters, marginalized communities, and the environment. This is one of the main problems with assuming New York City can explain the state of real estate in America. New York is one of only a few places where it’s possible to not have to drive a car everywhere, and where the majority of people rent their home. In America, this is an aggressive exception, not the rule. The problems that confront most of America are of a far different nature, and scale, than New York.

The authors grasp of history is often incomplete. Stein dismisses any movement that is out of step with his beliefs. Instead of objectively explaining them, he waves his hand at them with falsehoods (see his explanation of new urbanism). As a planner by education, I took particular exception to his explanation of planning history, which was woefully incomplete. How can one talk about the history of US planning without mentioning the era of colonial cities (whatever your thoughts on them are), or world shaping plans like William Penn’s Philadelphia, James Oglethorpe’s Savannah, or Pierre L’Enfant’s DC? This was just the tip of the iceberg, but merited mention because It’s offensive to the purported subject of his book: planners.

Stein is at pains of contortion to impose his lens of capital-labor dynamics on all issues when the answer may be much simpler, but less satisfying: (usually racism, not capitalism, though the two of course can go hand and hand). He glosses over history that isn’t convenient to his narrative, but essential in the formation of the country.

The most well written part of this book is an exploration of the Trump family real estate lineage, which is an enjoyable read. But I struggled to understand it’s relevance to the broader message of the book. It seems like it was inserted to air personal grievances against Trump (which I’m not opposed to, and I think is done well, but still).

I came in with an honest and open mind to this book, eager to see its diagnosis of the issues and prescribed solutions, as it came recommended to me by those who’s opinions I trust. But I was disappointed.

His hatred of capital leads to some positions that are confounding - like rejecting investments made into Detroit and Philadelphia in the last few decades not as improvements that were clamored for by struggling communities, but the all powerful, negative force of gentrification. He mistakes any level of investment or improvement for gentrification, which is a fallacy. As Stein would have it, communities should remain in states of decay, and their residents left struggling, because this would preserve the purity of industrial and class dynamics.

It reads as an emotionally charged critique that has a tenuous grasp of land use economics. His understanding of the social structures underpinning planning in American cities are nearly correct, but ideology distorts much of this. Ultimately, the author’s position as a theorist, not a practitioner, is where the book loses standing. One gets the impression that if he had spent any meaningful time working in a planning office, with community development groups, or as (God forbid) someone who built, managed, and provided much needed housing for people, this book would be entirely different. One can’t just imagine all will be solved by snapping their fingers, and that money or economics play no part in getting anything done. Whether one likes it or not, that’s the world we live in today. Your theory may hold that this shouldn’t be the case, but your solution can’t ignore the extant reality. Theory has very little impact on the lived reality of people who are struggling everyday and are demanding actionable initiatives.

Steins insistence that new supply wouldn’t alleviate the burdens faced by many is just not supported by data. He hardly mentions the crippling housing crisis many are facing, and instead turns to ills of large money interests. His concerns for working class people, as far as he’s concerned, is in mobilizing them as tools for his holy war against the struggle of capitalism, not necessarily improving the quality of people’s lives. He doesn’t spend much time considering providing more and better housing, which is odd, considering that’s the fundamental issue many face today. By his own admission, his ideal vision would mirror Havana, that most beautiful but crippled city. In Stein’s vision, our cities would crumble under the weight of social rule and result in abject poverty in the name of ideological purity. Havana’s land use patterns in the last half century are among the worst global precedents to follow. Its residents would attest loudly to this. What a luxury it must be to romanticize this struggle. The people who live through it are not so enthralled.

His ultimate solutions—reindustrializing the city and seizing the means of spatial production over the city—miss the mark. They’re not real solutions, but sophomoric fantasies that don’t address the urgent issues many face today. Stein is more concerned with class struggle at the expense of improving the lives of those who are struggling. Real people struggling have no desire to continue the righteous struggle. They just want to lead a nice life unburdened by explorative forces.

For a more objective look into how we’ve arrived at our current real estate state, I’d recommend the following: Evicted, color of law, death and life of American cities, triumph of the city, and suburban nation.

All in all, save your time here. It offers little in the way of tangible action. To be truthful, It’s a bit offensive to someone who has spent their career in the two fields the author is analyzing. Yes, there are many problems with our housing and real estate markets today that people are working desperately to solve. They won’t be solved overnight, and the real estate industry has much to answer for. But so too do cities, and homeowners, and politicians, and yes, planners. We need a comprehensive, pragmatic reimagination of the world around us, not theoretical fantasies. Time is ticking for far too many people.

[cande · Rating 4 out of 5]

the audio mixing on the audiobook tested my patience… the volume goes up and down, and my blood pressure follows along

[David Zhao · Rating 4 out of 5]

really vibed with this, a clear-cut book on how capitalism/real estate interests force urban planners and municipalities to bend urban spaces towards profit no matter what.

caveat: assumes a priori that gentrification is bad (which it is, obvi). but i can see some on-the-fence readers getting stuck on that issue since this book is not dedicated to proving that point first

[Ryan Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fast paced overview of the history of land use policy, with a definite focus on New York. I wish more books about land use and housing policy would discuss other cities, but the New York focus didn’t really detract from the powerful insights. I learned a lot and it makes me hungry for more.

[Mehrsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a short polemic against city developers--it's an important critique, but there isn't enough substance here. It's more a jumbled mess of ideas and theories (neoliberalism, capitalism, labor) that the writer does not connect with the subject.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was expecting something about the effect of market forces, laws, demographics on real estate. Instead I got a repetitive diatribe about gentrification. Halfway through the book I was just waiting for the author to start quoting Marx and was only surprised by how late in the book that happens.

[Fiona Tanuwidjaja · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 // a radical primer on the role of urban planners in real estate, city finance, and gentrification! minus 0.5 for being too nyc-centric

[Raja · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book serves as a decent short intro to the housing and gentrification crises from a leftist perspective. After summarizing the work of other theorists, including Richard Foglesong, Marie Kennedy, and Frances Fox Piven, we get to Samuel Stein's central argument:
Capital interests have significant influence over the government, especially over the urban planning process. Real estate capital, think developers, landlords, and their financialized forms (REITs, etc.), wants to increase land values, while industrial capital, think manufacturing, wants to decrease land values. Since WWII, when manufacturing and other industries started to leave cities, the interests of real estate capital have dominated over those of industrial capital, creating the twin crises tied to rising land value.

My summary above is about 70% of the substance of the book. Stein goes on to introduce some terms from housing/planning theory, then he gives us 2 completely useless filler chapters on New York mayoral housing policy and the Trumps, and finally he goes through the literature of solutions that don't involve a marxist revolution and tells us his favorites. Most of the solutions involve the planning process, and I found them interesting (especially because about halfway through the book I realized that my job is planning-adjacent). His summaries of community land trusts and tenant unionization were nice and clear. Despite my gripes about the middle of the book, I did feel like I came away with a better understanding of why gentrification happens, the relationship between police, credit rating agencies, and land values, and the pros/cons of common policy solutions like inclusionary zoning and rent control.

Sourcing note: this book is frequently recommended on housing twitter, especially to advocates of market-based housing solutions.

[Lue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short little book on how city planners frame gentrification and the displacement of peoples. I learned a lot about how urban planning works to generate the most money possible for the 1% in the real estate bubble. Planning is fundamentally linked to the expansion of capitalism, and therefore gentrification is not a by-product, but an intentional technique used by planners.

Also a good section on the Trump family whose fortune is built off of real-estate. The evil runs generations deep.

[Nils · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve often said that a comprehensive history of the United States — from the dispossession of the Native Americans down to DJT— could be well told as a story of one long series of ongoing land swindles. In a sense, Capital City is that history, charting the rise of what Stein refers to as “the real estate state,” that is, a state dedicated before anything else to raising property prices.

Stein’s interesting angle on this history is to place the figure of the city planner at the center of the argument, showing how “urban planning” decisions (by which Stein means land use regulations and subsidies in the broadest sense) have been critical to how US capitalism has in practice developed the country. Government officials as much as or even more than the capitalist developers figure as the central protagonists, with the capitalist developers presented as wheedlers, manipulators, and exploiters of the opportunities made available by governmental actions. Planners thus figure as both the practical villains (or dupes) but also as the potential heroes of the future.

Stein understands planning, correctly, as a deeply political process, and one of the values of the book is its rehearsal of the different phases and modalities of urban planning. [quotes from chapter 2]

The set piece on DJT’s career as a developer nicely illustrates the general themes of the book. Specifically, it shows how at every turn DJT’s business decisions were made either by exploiting loopholes in governmental regulations such as zoning laws or even more commonly by actively lobbying to create such loopholes that he personally could exploit. Urban development has always already been crony capitalism.

The central political argument subtending the book, however, is that it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead of being beholden to rich people and their desire to constantly create opportunities to enhance their property values (inevitably deflating property values in capital-abandoned neighborhoods while pricing out existing residents in gentrifying neighborhoods) Stein argues that planners could reorient themselves towards the needs of non-wealthy residents and communities.

Relating the dialect of urban hollowing out in some spaces to urban gentrification in others is a great conceptual value of this book, a spatial unity taught by geography departments: the movement of urban capital always leading both and simultaneously to deflation at the site of departure and to inflation at the site of arrival for the flying capital. (One thing that is not made clear in this homeostatic model is whether this capital is zero-sum over time, or whether capital can move into and out of real estate toward other types of more or less “productive” investments.)

If one wishes to be critical, one might observe that much of what Stein describes in a tone of contempt as profit driven corruption is in fact the way that development has always gotten done, given that development projects are always risky and that anyone would look for what guarantees they could get (inevitably from government) before plopping down the money. Stein doesn’t quite demonize private developers — his utopian future seems to be one of planned capitalism rather than socialism — but he also thinks they are purely coin operated. It’s unclear in his political model how planners alone can overcome the power of private capital. In the end Stein’s political goals waver between incrementalism (“We cannot replied the paradoxes of planning,” he admits. But “we can alter the dynamics, tipping the scales toward the exploited and oppressed” p169) and a certain kind of almost literally cracked Utopianism: the presentation of Havana as a model for future urbanism. Cuba has a variety of virtues, notably its public health system, but to celebrate its housing and urban management policies borders on insane: Havana infrastructure is literally falling apart.

This points to the central dilemma of Stein’s more “radical” ideas for the resocialization of housing: where’s the money supposed to come from to pay for maintenance, improvements, and new development? How do we get people to commit to maintaining collective property in the face of weak social solidarity? What if “the people” in many cases are incapable of self-government, particularly where social pathologies overwhelm personal stakes in collective outcomes? In a nutshell: Where is the reckoning with Pruitt Igoe or Cabrini Green? It wasn’t just a conspiracy of scheming developers and captured planners that led to the neoconservative and then neoliberal turn in urban planning; it was also the evident failures of the “militant modernist” model of social housing and social provisioning more generally. One can rightly point point to racist legacies to explain those failures — though the legal origins of the modern real estate state really lie in policies initiated by Hoover as Commerce Secretary and institutionalized by FDR as president (the latter almost totally unacknowledged by Stein) — but since those racist legacies are still with us, it’s not clear why the 2.0 version of statist planning won’t suffer the same pathologies when implemented at scale.

As the kibbutz in Israel showed, socialism can work when implemented by a solidaristic people who are ideologically committed to a collective endeavor. Once applied to many or all, however, the problems of defection and free-riding become insuperable. Even Israel’s kibbutzes — made up of small groups of racially and religiously homogeneous people who shared a primal unifying trauma — eventually succumbed to slow defection to the temptations of promised capitalist prosperity in Tel Aviv. Shit, it’s hard to get the teenagers to clean the dishes in the family sink; try getting people to commit to investing major resources to maintain (let alone build) property that doesn’t belong to them. Nice real estate costs a lot to maintain, especially if you want to pay the maintenance workers decently. And Cuba is if anything a dis-inspiring model.

In the end, Stein’s discussion of the politics is riven by the same underlying contradiction that so much “radicalism” suffers from, namely the belief that one can escape process-driven bureaucracy (and hierarchy) into unmediated expressions of the popular will. In fact, Stein seems to dimly understands this, but keeps falling into his own contradictions (which he acknowledges by repeatedly admitting “it’s complicated”), on the one hand celebrating grassroots rejections of elite led processes and “rowdiness” (189) while at the same time (correctly) rejecting “horizontalism” as politically fatuous utopian nonsense. These two political values are ultimately self-cancelling, it seems to me. Either you believe in professionalism, which necessarily entails a certain elitism, or you believe in unprofessionalism. Stein ultimately won’t fully embrace dirtbaggery, but doesn’t muster the courage to facially reject it either.

(For me, the answer is pretty straightforward: my central political vision is of a privileged professional class of experts — what Steve Weber and I have elsewhere dubbed “competent operators” — overseeing an otherwise egalitarian state and society, using AI-enabled cybernetic tools both to receive modulated feedback from the masses and to produce accountability for the elites. A fully automated accountable PMC, one might say.)

What this leaves unresolved however is the question lurking at the heart of Stein’s book, which is who should have decision rights, in what process, over how to deploy capital for urban development. Curiously for a book with the word “capital” right there in the title, there is almost no discussion of finance. As I say: where’s the money supposed to come from to pay for maintenance, improvements, and new development?

[Kevin Chu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm jealous of the students at Hunter College who get enjoy Prof. Stein's urban studies teaching and his diagnosis of real estate's relation to late-stage capitalism. In this succinct, accessible book, Stein provides a helpful distinction within capital-C Capitalism between the industrial capitalism of the shop floor and the financial real estate (FIRE) capitalism that props up what he calls the real-estate state. He draws a line from post-war de-industrialization to today's gentrification dystopia of vacant luxury high-rises and grandmas getting evicted, untangling the economic and political levers that an unholy union of developers, financiers, politicians, and (despite their utopian intentions) planners have pulled to enable this current reality. Despite the sheer capital and omnipresence of the real-estate state, Stein presents hopeful alternatives that, rather than re-imagining the city from scratch, build off what we already know to be possible.

[Cami · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciate Sam Stein’s book immensely. His activist and unapologetic voice is refreshing. The mix of theory and reality was a good equilibrium. Although for someone who has not read much about urban planning some important theories and concepts are quickly explained in two or three sentences.

Overall this is a great must read for anyone interested in urban planning but I feel that anyone working to change society in a positive way would benefit from reading it.

Finally, I with Sam spent more time in the solution and conclusion portion of the book. Maybe it could be a sequel!

Ps: I didn’t count it through but it would be interesting to see how many women vs men were quotes and referenced. I had the distinct impression that the balance was a little bit off.

Thank you for putting this book out in the world!

[Nick Patten · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent primer for understanding the state's role in the process of gentrification that has become centerpiece in today's movements for racial, economic and social justice. I have worked in housing activism and eviction defense and witnessed the implications of the processes that Stein maps out, but have never fully understood them as inherent to the neoliberal period and the financialization of historically publically-shared spaces. Stein makes a good argument that the Trump era has presented us with an unprecedented moment in the growth of the real estate state. The veil has been fully lifted and there is no better time for planners, activists, and progressive leaders to band together and push back against these forces and fight for a more equitable, democratic vision of housing and public space.

[Jared Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an urban planner, I’m glad I read this. It was a perspective I never got in school and a conversation that needs to happen more. The book centers around the planners role in creating great places to live and how it affects gentrification.

My favorite fact from the book is that from 1940-1990 NYC lost 750,000 manufacturing jobs, real estate boomed, and the unions they once fought for low rent housing for blue collar employees lost power. If you want to learn about housing affordability you should put this book on your list!

Also, I should say I skimmed over the Trump centric chapter 4... not as interesting as the rest of the book. The recommendations for change at the end were also quite high level and systemic. I was hoping for quicker fixes but I suppose housing is complex and not an easily addressed issue.

[Nils Jepson · Rating 5 out of 5]

yeah really really good. calls out planners in a productive way and has a good handle on the limits of profession when compared to mass organizing. puts a lot of thoughts my classmates and i have into words. every planner should read this and sit with this and contend with their supposed morality and intentions.

read 2:
a really remarkable book to be honest. succinct without ever losing its specificity. if i ever run a planning dept (god help me!) i'd make every baby planner read this on the first day, and every senior planner read every other year w/ a write-up talking about how we can apply sam stein's recs to our planning apparatus. really really love the last few chapters and esp the stuff on making the planning process more combative as a mode of outreach. planning to sharpen the contradictions baby.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good overview on how cities and the real estate industry work together to create overpriced, gentrifying and untenable places for tenants to live. Samuel Stein is an urban planner by trade, and a lecturer at Hunter College, and Capital City is a collection of the history of how cities (New York City, in particular) have intentionally developed in this way, and most importantly, Stein lays out ways in which people can reclaim urban life for public good.

There is a lot of food for thought here, hence why I spent the last two months reading this book in small doses. It served as a shining light on a subject that I had some cursory knowledge, and really went in-depth painting the full picture. Well-worth the time spent. 4/5.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first 150 pages show in very specific ways why it is so difficult to form an adequate organizing strategy for subverting displacement and decommodifying housing in any city. The incentive structures for city planners are complex and learning about them was helpful and humbling. Stein does eventually get around to offering nine achievable policies on pp 159-169. They seem good and I had only heard of a few of them before. Overall: Fun read, not too demanding, learned a lot of new concepts.

[Ruedigar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to give this 5 stars, but the 4th chapter (the one about trump) was a bit of a drag that I didn't feel furthered the overall argument. That chapter felt like it didn't live up to it's potential. Other than that, I thought it was a well-articulated argument that speaks to the imperative to wrest our cities away from developers.

[Swarthout · Rating 5 out of 5]

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