TOPIC

Real Estate

The Paradox at the Heart of the Fires

When it comes to providing safe and affordable housing, why does the public sector receive so little funding and so much scrutiny, while the private sector gets ample incentives with minimal accountability?

Whereabouts

5-100346

This building is fast.

Trust Exercise

In Western Queens, activists see a waterfront warehouse as an opportunity to broaden the horizons of a community's control over its own future.

The Struggle is Real Estate

In Berlin’s city center, an activist-led redevelopment scheme is setting a bold example for rescuing financially valuable public land from privatization and gentrification.

Whereabouts

4-36129

Removing a vault can cost up to $150,000.

Withdrawn Waters

The balance between New York City's public and private pools has shifted dramatically in recent decades. Why has so much city swimming retreated into towers or behind fences?

Cleaning Up?

Remediation as Business as Usual: A Mid-Rise Residential Building in the South Bronx

Broom Swept

An artist stalks the storefront ruins of Lower Manhattan, documenting the material traces of real estate's perpetual churn.

Shelf Life

Property of the Pandemic

From face masks to diaries, institutions are collecting artifacts from daily life under COVID-19. One itinerant museum has preserved letters from landlords to tenants for posterity.

Digital Frictions

Disruption at the Doorstep

Facial recognition. Tenant screening platforms. Biometric databases. A new set of digital products seeks to disrupt the real estate industry. But these technologies are fast becoming weaponized against a familiar target of housing discrimination: working-class tenants of color.