Michael McQuarrie
Michael McQuarrie is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the London School of Economics. He was formerly a community organizer, a labor organizer, and a housing developer.
Financial Destruction in Detroit
On Friday, Detroit’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the city challenging the legitimacy of...
Take Note: Berlin Thrives with a Declining Population and Housing Surplus
A few months ago I wrote a piece for Shelterforce and a related piece for Rooflines on Mumbai.There I...
In India, Large-scale Housing Solutions Don’t Work
In the latest issue of Shelterforce, I proposed that community development practitioners in the U.S. could learn from Dharavi,...
Detroit: Exception or Rule?
The bankruptcy of Detroit (the legal filing is currently on hold) has prompted a sudden flood of interest in...
What Mumbai’s Slums Do Right, And Why We Should Emulate Them
Sometimes to understand our own cities and community development practices it is helpful to understand a radically different setting. In the slums of Mumbai...
ESOP Rises Again
The success of a Cleveland-based community organizing group in the face of massive foreclosures suggests that the city (and the nation) should have held on to a more diverse set of community organizations.
CDCs Must Recognize Changing Conditions
It was announced this week that new home sales dropped 15 percent in December. This follows a year of similar news. Earlier in the...
Running on Empty
For decades, community developers have relied on the power of markets to bring neighborhoods back, but they can't build their way out of the foreclosure mess.