As a whole, Tom Angotti’s novel examines community planning responses to several injustices within communities, including urban renewal, large-scale planning, gentrification, and now, real estate. The issue of land ownership started in the 60s and 70s when vacant lots and abandoned buildings were handed to the highest bidders. This kinda makes sense, except for the fact that all this land would have provided a powerful foundation to build a better future, such as allowing communities to use their own ideas to plan and develop the land in their own neighborhood. Instead, the government’s distribution of land left neighborhoods at the mercy of real estate companies.
Neoliberalism, which calls for deregulation of the government, privatization, and market-driven development, has led to the replacement of a strong public sector by privatization. As a result, communities confront local governments that are “less aggressive in leading land development and more dependent on hegemonic real estate interests.” The policy of the government has facilitated the rise of the powerful real estate market that we’ve come to know today.
Not only does the market systematically segregate communities by wealth in its quest for additional profit, but also by race. “The sale and rental of property are color-coded,” meaning that certain races are encouraged not to buy property in certain neighborhoods. The city’s racial apartheid has led to racial steering, but also the benefit of blockbusting. It’s surprising how much of an impact the real estate company has on the economy of NYC. It has its downsides and its benefits, even unintentionally. But as a whole, real estate basically transformed the central NY district into a globalized cultural one, full of competition between real estate companies, elected officials, and community residents.
Even in its efforts to provide affordable housing for the low-income classes, the benefits of real estate outweigh the benefits to low-income tenants. Private developers that finance low-income housing have an incentive- tax deductions. It allows the private developers to accumulate money and initiate programs that depend on market-rate housing for low-income residents. These programs pave the way for gentrification and displacement due to the increase in construction that eventually drives up property values and rent. New buildings and property attracts people with more money in their pockets and eventually displaces the poor and affordable housing.
As Angotti suggests, we need the city to allow local neighborhoods to grow “independently” and “organically,” in a process not driven by real estate developers and without depending on financing from global investors. We need communities to take control of their own land because with real estate, “property is theft.”
