How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood

FEATURING PETER MOSKOWITZ – There are neighborhoods in cities across America that evolved into wonderful communities where working class and middle class families lived, ate, and shopped, where there was racial diversity, flourishing culture, and neighborhood cohesiveness.

But when such areas were “discovered” by wealthier, whiter, families looking for the perfect living environment, a slow-moving process of change began, leaving homogeneity in its wake, and a destruction of the complex and intangible things that were positive in the first place. The phenomenon is so widespread now that there is a name for it: “gentrification.”

Activists have denounced gentrification as a form of “urban colonialism.” But the forces driving gentrification are not as clear-cut as historical colonizers.

Peter Moskowitz, freelance journalist who has written for The Guardian, New York Times, New Republic, Wired, Slate, Buzzfeed, and more. He’s a former staff writer at Al Jazeera America. His new book is called How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood.