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Shaking Up the City: Ignorance, Inequality, and the Urban Question
Shaking Up the City critically examines many of the concepts and categories within mainstream urban studies that serve dubious policy agendas. Through a combination of theory and empirical evidence, Tom Slater “shakes up” mainstream urban studies in a concise and pointed fashion by turning on its head much of the prevailing wisdom in the field. To this end, he explores the themes of data-driven innovation, urban resilience, gentrification, displacement and rent control, neighborhood effects, territorial stigmatization, and ethnoracial segregation. With important contributions to ongoing debates in sociology, geography, urban planning, and public policy, this book engages closely with struggles for land rights and housing justice to offer numerous insights for scholarship and political action to guard against the spread of an urbanism rooted in vested interest.
258 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 21, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 27, 2023
astounding. somehow, more than other disciplines i think, there's a set of neoliberal assumptions attached to urban planning that innately make planning "planning." like it's kind of turned into just "how do we redirect the market to serve some public good while making sure the rich still get richer." a lot of urban planning, I've come to realize, is built off of half-thoughts that we all think through, as planners, but then ignore because dealing with these would mean shaking the foundations of how we build cities, which then, possibly, means deconstructing all of city planning as we know of.
slater finishes these thoughts. slater destroys planning. slater destroys any assumption that we can reach some type of "social justice" through urban planning if that justice is based off of market intervention (YIMBYISM, mixed-use development, place-making, resiliency, etc.)
so much shit in urban studies is really just saying the same thing over and over again: diagnosing a problem, sort of, and proposing a few safe half-measures to, sort of, deal with this problem. take evictions. we know stronger rent controls, more public housing, stronger tenants rights and representation in court, community-owned land trusts, first right of refusal, etc. are all successful policies to combat eviction and displacement. and yet planners still spend most of their time in a fever-dream over housing vouchers and supply and demand build build build urbanism, even though both policy measures have never really been proven successful in the face of deregulation and privatization. but, perhaps, slater points out, that's the whole point. when you plan for the powerful, you get cities that serve the powerful -- no matter the flimsy language many of these govs, think tanks, and false charities use surrounding terms like "social justice" "resiliency" or "placemaking."
the longer planning stays stuck in a cycle of purposefully misdiagnosing urban issues like homelessness and eviction and gentrification, and the longer it keeps trying to solve these issues with the very mechanisms that led to these inequalities in the first place, the deeper shit we're going to be in. we need a type of planning that diagnoses not the naturalization of poverty or "neighborhood affects" or "territorial stigmatization" but a planning that prioritizes the political-economic reasons of why our governments are underfunded (or spend most the budget on their police force cough) or why uneven development occurs or why folks do what they do to survive. we need to think about land use differently.
we can't continue the type of city planning we're used to. we can't rely on any type of urbanism to fix shit. a mixed-use development with a Sweetgreen, a 24-hour fitness, a Reformation, and 4 affordable housing units (that expire in 10 years) isn't going to save us. we need new assumptions. we need cities for the people, asap.
slater finishes these thoughts. slater destroys planning. slater destroys any assumption that we can reach some type of "social justice" through urban planning if that justice is based off of market intervention (YIMBYISM, mixed-use development, place-making, resiliency, etc.)
so much shit in urban studies is really just saying the same thing over and over again: diagnosing a problem, sort of, and proposing a few safe half-measures to, sort of, deal with this problem. take evictions. we know stronger rent controls, more public housing, stronger tenants rights and representation in court, community-owned land trusts, first right of refusal, etc. are all successful policies to combat eviction and displacement. and yet planners still spend most of their time in a fever-dream over housing vouchers and supply and demand build build build urbanism, even though both policy measures have never really been proven successful in the face of deregulation and privatization. but, perhaps, slater points out, that's the whole point. when you plan for the powerful, you get cities that serve the powerful -- no matter the flimsy language many of these govs, think tanks, and false charities use surrounding terms like "social justice" "resiliency" or "placemaking."
the longer planning stays stuck in a cycle of purposefully misdiagnosing urban issues like homelessness and eviction and gentrification, and the longer it keeps trying to solve these issues with the very mechanisms that led to these inequalities in the first place, the deeper shit we're going to be in. we need a type of planning that diagnoses not the naturalization of poverty or "neighborhood affects" or "territorial stigmatization" but a planning that prioritizes the political-economic reasons of why our governments are underfunded (or spend most the budget on their police force cough) or why uneven development occurs or why folks do what they do to survive. we need to think about land use differently.
we can't continue the type of city planning we're used to. we can't rely on any type of urbanism to fix shit. a mixed-use development with a Sweetgreen, a 24-hour fitness, a Reformation, and 4 affordable housing units (that expire in 10 years) isn't going to save us. we need new assumptions. we need cities for the people, asap.
October 15, 2023
A big thank you to Nils for writing a glowing review of this book and inspiring my urban planning friends and I to (attempt to) book club it.
This book was everything I wish grad school had been. In all of my classes I had a feeling I couldn’t quite shake that we weren’t getting to the root of things, that we weren’t talking about urban planning and the systems it operates within in a direct way. We acknowledged climate change, we looked at HOPE IV, we talked about how capitalism shaped cities. But we never really GOT to it, you know? This book lays bare all of the things urban planning is working for and with and against and within and it was the first thing in a while that’s actually expanded my view of cities and the systems they operate within and are operated by. I wouldn’t have had to create a Radical Planning class if we had just started my masters with this book. Really loved it.
This book was everything I wish grad school had been. In all of my classes I had a feeling I couldn’t quite shake that we weren’t getting to the root of things, that we weren’t talking about urban planning and the systems it operates within in a direct way. We acknowledged climate change, we looked at HOPE IV, we talked about how capitalism shaped cities. But we never really GOT to it, you know? This book lays bare all of the things urban planning is working for and with and against and within and it was the first thing in a while that’s actually expanded my view of cities and the systems they operate within and are operated by. I wouldn’t have had to create a Radical Planning class if we had just started my masters with this book. Really loved it.
October 26, 2023
Absolutely brilliant. The book they should’ve had us read in my first semester of my urban planning master’s program. Or, maybe second, to give this book a better chance to direct its incisive critique of “the heteronomy of urban research” at an audience who really truly needs to hear it.
So many ideas taken as dogmatic in planning schools are never truly questioned, critiqued, or analyzed — Slater articulates a strong case for how that harms the broader field(s) of urban studies, and, in the final analysis, privileges entrenched interests in our cities and institutions. To crib one of Slater’s many excellent theses, we need more research that drives policy, and less policy that drives research.
All that said, you really don’t need to be an urban planner to get a lot of value out of this book. Anyone engaged in local urban planning from any angle (as a resident, developer, advocate, city staff, etc.) or involved in movements for climate/housing/social/economic justice can benefit from what this book has to offer. Incredible read, easy 5/5!
So many ideas taken as dogmatic in planning schools are never truly questioned, critiqued, or analyzed — Slater articulates a strong case for how that harms the broader field(s) of urban studies, and, in the final analysis, privileges entrenched interests in our cities and institutions. To crib one of Slater’s many excellent theses, we need more research that drives policy, and less policy that drives research.
All that said, you really don’t need to be an urban planner to get a lot of value out of this book. Anyone engaged in local urban planning from any angle (as a resident, developer, advocate, city staff, etc.) or involved in movements for climate/housing/social/economic justice can benefit from what this book has to offer. Incredible read, easy 5/5!
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January 28, 2025Hey yall read this for a class. Lots of big words. Loved the cynical narrator
March 5, 2024
Out of all the planning books I've read, this was definitely one of them.
Slater is covering mainly housing, land, and inequality in a very left-wing perspective (if you're into that). I appreciate him opening up what he calls "Urban Agnotology", which is basically the insistence of current neoliberal approaches to urban studies to not ask certain question or certain perspectives in community development or housing justice.
Without diving into the text point-by-point, there are a number of kind of weak arguments made to support his main ideas (for example, he tries to counter the idea that housing costs are high due to a difference of supply and demand by affirming that cannot be the case because there are 750,000 empty units in the UK, without acknowledging that the supply/demand challenges in question are not in the same places where there are vacant units. Most vacant units are in places with fewer jobs and amenities than big cities, where there is a supply/demand disconnect). Slater also frames some of his detractors in bad faith (at one point he quotes an article by Edward Glasear and sort of implies he's advocating for a return to slumlords when, upon reading the rest of the short article, he obviously is not). Other than that, I enjoyed the book, it definitely breaks open new ground in thinking about issues with gentrification and neighborhood stigmas.
This book isn't for beginners (and is written in often annoying academic jargon) and assumes you have some background with left-wing planning theory, so just get ready for that.
Slater is covering mainly housing, land, and inequality in a very left-wing perspective (if you're into that). I appreciate him opening up what he calls "Urban Agnotology", which is basically the insistence of current neoliberal approaches to urban studies to not ask certain question or certain perspectives in community development or housing justice.
Without diving into the text point-by-point, there are a number of kind of weak arguments made to support his main ideas (for example, he tries to counter the idea that housing costs are high due to a difference of supply and demand by affirming that cannot be the case because there are 750,000 empty units in the UK, without acknowledging that the supply/demand challenges in question are not in the same places where there are vacant units. Most vacant units are in places with fewer jobs and amenities than big cities, where there is a supply/demand disconnect). Slater also frames some of his detractors in bad faith (at one point he quotes an article by Edward Glasear and sort of implies he's advocating for a return to slumlords when, upon reading the rest of the short article, he obviously is not). Other than that, I enjoyed the book, it definitely breaks open new ground in thinking about issues with gentrification and neighborhood stigmas.
This book isn't for beginners (and is written in often annoying academic jargon) and assumes you have some background with left-wing planning theory, so just get ready for that.
December 14, 2021
Great book.
Slater has written a great book covering many of the most urgent urban topics today. If there is one theme permeating his book, it is this: be critical!, of categories, concepts and speech surrounding everything urban, spouted by politicians, journalists or philologists.
Slater has written a great book covering many of the most urgent urban topics today. If there is one theme permeating his book, it is this: be critical!, of categories, concepts and speech surrounding everything urban, spouted by politicians, journalists or philologists.
January 24, 2022
Love this book- a truly critical, insightful and insightful examination of cities and urban critical theory through the lens of fascinating case examples. A must read.
May 26, 2025
Officially the most impactful book I've read for college. Why do we not know what we don't know? How do we represent and symbolize others? These are questions I will be thinking about my entire life. - 25/05/26
Terrifyingly good book! - 24/10/31
Terrifyingly good book! - 24/10/31
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews