Gentrification and displacement of low-income communities of color are major issues in New York City and the city’s zoning policies are a major cause. Race matters but the city ignores it when shaping land use and housing policies. The city promises “affordable housing” that is not truly affordable. Zoned Out! shows how this has played in Williamsburg, Harlem and Chinatown, neighborhoods facing massive displacement of people of color. It looks at ways the city can address inequalities, promote authentic community-based planning and develop housing in the public domain.

Tom Angotti is Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College, the Graduate Center, and City University of New York, and Director of the Hunter College Center for Community Planning & Development. He is author of New York For Sale: Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate, which won the 2009 Davidoff Book Award.

Philip DePaolo is a long-time community activist who has been fighting issues of gentrification and poor zoning policies throughout New York City. He was formerly a resident of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Peter Marcuse is Professor Emeritus, Department of Urban Planning at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. He has written extensively on urban planning and housing.

Sylvia Morse received her Master of Urban Planning degree from CUNY Hunter College, where she focused on housing and participatory planning. She is a lifelong New Yorker who has worked with community-based and nonprofit organizations dedicated to affordable housing, community-based planning, and racial and economic justice.

Samuel Stein is a PhD student in Geography at the CUNY Graduate Center and holds a master’s degree in Urban Planning from Hunter College. In addition to teaching and studying urban geography, he worked as a researcher, organizer, and planner on numerous New York City union campaigns, tenant mobilizations, and public policy initiatives. 

“From NYC’s 1811 grid to Bloomberg and De Blasio’s upzonings, Zoned Out! shines light on the deceptive ways seemingly race neutral zoning laws continue to maintain and promote the racial and socioeconomic hierarchies America was built to support. A must read for housing advocates, organizers, journalists and academics alike.” --- Andrew J. Padilla, Director of El Barrio Tours: Gentrification USA

“Should the ‘highest and best’ use of land be determined by the market, or should the right of citizens to live in stable and equitable communities, especially important for communities of color historically victimized by elite power disguised as ‘the market,’ take precedence? Full of insight and provocation, this volume is essential reading for those scholars, students, and activists searching for alternative courses of action to widespread urban displacement, growing income inequality, and resurgent racial polarization in the United States.” ---
J. Phillip Thompson, MIT, Department of Urban Studies and Planning

“New York is a city of neighborhoods, but Angotti, Morse, and their coauthors show that city planning policies systematically disenfranchise and displace low-income New Yorkers who live in historic communities of color. They urge us to rethink what ‘affordable’ housing means, and develop the political will to aim for a radically different system of public resources and community plans.” --- Sharon Zukin, Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center

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176 pages, black and white,  text with maps/charts and photographs, softcover, 6” x 9”, ISBN 978-0-9960041-3-8, printed in the United States, 2017.