Yuca Meubrink's "Inclusionary Housing and Urban Inequality in London and New York City: Gentrification Through the Back Door" offers a critical analysis of inclusionary housing programs in London and New York City. The book examines the socio-spatial dimensions of these programs, revealing how they can inadvertently contribute to gentrification and displacement. Meubrink uses empirical research and case studies to illustrate the complexities of the planning process and the unintended consequences of well-intentioned policies. The research highlights the limitations of inclusionary housing in achieving its goals of affordable housing and social mixing, ultimately challenging the prevailing assumptions about its effectiveness. The book's findings are relevant to researchers, students, and policymakers interested in urban planning and housing policy.
Municipalities around the world have increasingly used inclusionary housing programs to address their housing shortages. Inclusionary Housing and Urban Inequality in London and New York City: Gentrification Through the Back Door (Routledge, 2024) problematizes those programs in London and New York City by offering an empirical, research-based perspective on the socio-spatial dimensions of inclusionary housing approaches in both cities. The aim of those programs is to produce affordable housing and foster greater socio-economic inclusion by mandating or incentivizing private developers to include affordable housing units within their market-rate residential developments.
The starting point of this book is the so-called “poor door” practice in London and New York City, which results in mixed-income developments with separate entrances for “affordable housing” and wealthier market-rate residents. Focusing on this “poor door” practice allowed for a critical look at the housing program behind it. By exploring the relationship between inclusionary housing, new-build gentrification, and austerity urbanism, this book highlights the complexity of the planning process and the ambivalences and interdependencies of the actors involved. Thereby, it provides evidence that the provision of affordable housing or social mixing through this program has only limited success and, above all, that it promotes – in a sense through the “back door” – the very gentrification and displacement mechanisms it is supposed to counteract. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of housing studies, planning, and urban sociology, as well as planners and policymakers who are interested in the consequences of their own housing programs.
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