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Podcast: New Books in American Studies
Episode: Jonathan Tarleton, "Homes for Living: The Fight for Social Housing and a New American Commons" (Beacon Press, 2025)
Description: In Homes for Living: The Fight for Social Housing and a New American Commons (Beacon Press, 2025), 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...