Yuancheng read and liked Morgan's review of Housing by People: Towards Autonomy in Building Environments (Ideas in Progress):

"A disappointing book. Anarchist urban theorists are few and far between, so I had high hopes of radical new ways to think about urban space. Unfortunately, the book is pretty fluffy: you can sort of guess where he's going with things if you've ever h...more A disappointing book. Anarchist urban theorists are few and far between, so I had high hopes of radical new ways to think about urban space. Unfortunately, the book is pretty fluffy: you can sort of guess where he's going with things if you've ever heard or read a contemporary anarchist critique of state-Marxists. Here's the gist: capitalist housing market: fail. State-created housing: fail. Solution: let poor people work it out for themselves, either by leaving them the fuck alone, or (if you're a government that really wants to help) subsidize easy-to-use building materials like corrugated steel and cinder blocks.

Not that that's not a good idea. To me, however, this book didn't make that argument very forcefully, and doesn't consider the repercussions of making policy recommendations fully enough. Some of that is 20/20 hindsight on my part, I'll admit: The World Bank, in it's way, is influenced by Turner. To millions if not billions of squatters the world over, I have to imagine, benevolent neglect by the state just isn't cutting it. (less) "