Excluded: How Snob Zoning, NIMBYism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don't See

The last acceptable form of prejudice in America is based on class and executed through state-sponsored economic discrimination, making housing unaffordable and frustrating the goals of the civil rights movement. Richard Kahlenberg's book "The Housing Crisis" illustrates why economic segregation matters and shows that housing choice has been socially engineered to the benefit of the affluent. However, there is hope through local and national movements working to tear down the walls that inflict damage on the lives of millions of Americans.

Format: Hardback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 27 July 2023
Publisher: PublicAffairs,U.S.

While the American meritocracy officially denounces prejudice based on race and gender, it has spawned a new form of bias against those with less education and income. Millions of working-class Americans have their opportunities blocked by exclusionary snob zoning, which makes housing unaffordable, frustrates the goals of the civil rights movement, and locks in inequality in our urban and suburban landscapes. Through moving accounts of families excluded from economic and social opportunity as they are hemmed in through new redlining that limits the type of housing that can be built, Richard Kahlenberg vividly illustrates why America has a housing crisis. He also illustrates why economic segregation matters, since where you live affects access to transportation, employment opportunities, decent health care, and good schools. He shows that housing choice has been socially engineered to the benefit of the affluent, and that astonishingly, the most restrictive zoning is found in politically liberal cities where racial views are more progressive.

Despite this, there is hope. Kahlenberg tells the inspiring stories of growing numbers of local and national movements working to tear down the walls that inflict so much damage on the lives of millions of Americans.

Dimension: 171 x 121 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781541701465