Peter Dreier
Peter Dreier is professor of politics at Occidental College and has contributed to Shelterforce since the 1970s. He served for many years on the board of the National Housing Institute and was a founder of the Massachusetts Tenants Organization in the 1980s and has worked with housing activist groups since then.
How Los Angeles Won the Largest Municipal Housing Program in the Country
The ambitious funding campaign took strong cross-movement organizing and the right political moment.
Eminent and Notorious: Radical Urban Planner Chester Hartman (1936-2023)
An appreciation of the life and work of Chester Hartman, a radical planner in the service of a vision of social justice.
Jerome Rappaport: Generous Philanthropist or Rapacious Developer?
During his life, he made large donations to hospitals, colleges, and museums. He also razed an entire neighborhood to the ground and fought fervently to degrade tenant rights.
Not Your Granddad’s Suburb: Trump’s Racist Appeals Fall Flat In Diversified Suburbs
Trump attempted to win over the suburbs by using racist buzzwords, demonstrating his ignorance of what modern suburbia looks like.
How California’s “Sleeping Giant” Woke Up and Won Statewide Rent Caps
California's momentous statewide win for statewide rent caps is owed to organizers and the power of organizing. Now that the giant is awake, what's next?
Jane Jacobs: Defender of Cities and their People
On April 10, 1968, New York state officials scheduled a public hearing to discuss their plans for an expressway that would have sliced across...
How to Make Housing Affordable for All the Working Poor
The headlines tell the story: “Half of all renters can’t afford the rent.” “Renters, get ready to take it...
The Revitalization Trap
Place-based initiatives won’t address the kinds of injustice and poverty that community development was formed to fight.
With responses by Brentin Mock and Miriam Axel-Lute.
Segregation 101
A year after Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, The New York Times published a front-page article about racism in the St. Louis area. What it doesn't address is ...
The Revitalization Trap
The community development movement began in the 1960s as part of a crusade against social injustice,...
The Stunning Inequality Overlooked in the Nation’s “Housing Recovery”
This piece has been excerpted from “What is Mel Watt Waiting For?“ originally published on Huffington Post.—-Mel Watt, the...
Fifty Young Progressive Activists Who Are Changing America
In the next decade, America will be transformed by a new wave of progressive activism, led primarily by organizers, thinkers,...
Racial and Gender Diversity at the Top Is Good, But it Can’t Stop Greed
Last month Wells Fargo, the nation's largest home mortgage lender and fourth largest bank, agreed to pay at least $175 million to redress blatant...
The Next Stage of the Occupy Movement
Criticized for focusing more on what it is against than what it is for, the Occupy Wall Street movement has now found an organizing...
The Rosa Parks of a New Economic Justice Movement?
The protesters challenging the big banks and the super-rich won a dramatic victory in Los Angeles on Thursday, as I describe below. OneWest Bank,...
California’s Anti-Foreclosure Movement
Rose Gudiel is on the front lines of a growing protest movement to stop banks from foreclosing on families victimized by the economic crisis...
Want to Help Homeowners? Replace the Mansion Subsidy
I don’t think for a second that The New York Times is in bed with the real estate industry. It has done some excellent...
Fukuyama’s Wisdom on Rent Control and Unions Is Anything But Conventional
The ideas of Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992) are making a comeback, in large part due to Glenn Beck, who has touted the libertarian economist and...
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire at 100: Businesses and Politicians Still “Cry Wolf”
A year and half ago Donald Cohen and I created the Cry Wolf Project to expose how business organizations and conservative politicians repeatedly evoked...
Does Public Housing Have a Future?
Everybody hates public housing, except the low-income people who live there and the people on the long waiting lists to get in. After years of neglect, the Obama administration wants to save public housing for future generations. Let's let them.