Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City in The Majority Report Podcast Goodreads Group

Feb 22, 2019 Matt Medelman rated it really liked it

Evicted tells powerful, wrenching stories about poverty and the legal, racial, and economic factors that contribute to the terrible outcomes poor Americans experience in the housing market, and the damage it does to their sense of stability and prospects for social mobility. The stories are deeply reported and include the perspectives of numerous stakeholders beyond tenants, including landlords and property owners.
The only criticism I have of the book is that it spends about 300 pages demonstr Evicted tells powerful, wrenching stories about poverty and the legal, racial, and economic factors that contribute to the terrible outcomes poor Americans experience in the housing market, and the damage it does to their sense of stability and prospects for social mobility. The stories are deeply reported and include the perspectives of numerous stakeholders beyond tenants, including landlords and property owners.
The only criticism I have of the book is that it spends about 300 pages demonstrating that we have a serious problem with affordable housing in our cities and only about 20 pages (the epilogue) discussing the solutions and policy prescriptions that can effectively address the problem. This is a subject that deserves its own 300 pages, its own book. Desmond did significant data collection and analysis to accompany this book and shows that he may be equipped to discuss these policy issues in some detail in the epilogue, but it seems like he ran out of space or ambition for what he could do with a single book. The book spurs us to action, but falls a bit short in telling us how to act, leaving a question asked but unanswered about how an expanded national voucher program would interact differing conditions in the housing market in different areas, first advocating for a "big solution", "significantly expanding our housing voucher program so that all low-income families could benefit from it." and later noting:
"Establishing the basic right to housing in America could be realized in any number of ways- and probably should be. What works best in New York might fail in Los Angeles. The solution to housing problems in booming Houston or Atlanta or Seattle is not what is most needed in the deserted metropolises of the Rust Belt of Florida's impoverished suburbs or small towns dotting the landscape. One city must build; another must destroy. If our cities and towns are rich in diversity- with unique textures and styles, gifts and problems- so too must be our solution" There is another book to be written here. ...more

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