NYU Furman Center Jonathan Tarleton Book Event
Please join the NYU Furman Center and the NYU Wagner Urban Planning Program
for a book talk event:
Homes for Living: The Fight for Social Housing and a New American Commons
with
Jonathan Tarleton
Author
in conversation with
Reed Jordan
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Service
NYU Wagner
NYU Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service
105 East 17th St
New York, NY 10003
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
12:00 - 1:30 p.m. ET
In-person seating is available for the NYU community only.
A light lunch will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Book Description:
The American Dream of homeownership is becoming an American Delusion. As renters seek an escape from record-breaking rent hikes, first-time buyers find that skyrocketing interest rates and historically low inventory leave them with scant options for an affordable place to live. With home valued more than ever as a commodity, even social housing programs meant to insulate families from cut-throat markets are under threat—sometimes by residents themselves.
In Homes for Living, urban planner and oral historian Jonathan Tarleton introduces readers to 2 social housing co-ops in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Longtime residents of St. James Towers and Southbridge Towers lock horns over whether to maintain the rules that have kept their homes affordable for decades or to cash out at great personal profit, thereby denying future generations the same opportunity to build thriving communities rooted in mutual care.
With a deft hand for mapping personal histories atop the greater housing crisis, Tarleton explores housing as a public good, movements for tenant rights and Indigenous sovereignty, and questions of race and class to lay bare competing visions of what ownership means, what homes are for, and what neighbors owe each other.
About the Author:
Jonathan Tarleton is a writer, an urban planner, and an oral historian. He previously served as the chief researcher on Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas and as the editor in chief of the online magazine Urban Omnibus. His essays have appeared in Orion, Jacobin, Hell Gate, Dirt, and beyond.
About the Moderator:
Reed Jordan is an MIT-trained urban planner and is an experienced public policy professional. He is currently a Senior Policy Advisor in the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development where he creates and leads strategic high-priority initiatives for senior leadership requiring coordination across agency offices and applying policy, data, and financial analysis in support of the agency’s programming and policy agenda. He also managed policy analysis for “Where We Live NYC”, the City of New York’s fair housing planning process to study and create a plan to address residential segregation, housing discrimination, and access to opportunity.
This event will be live-streamed. A Watch Live link will be sent to registered attendees shortly before the event.