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Just Shelter

Gentrification, Integration, Race, and Reconstruction

Ronald R. Sundstrom (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, University of San Francisco)

$75.95

Hardback

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English
Oxford University Press Inc
25 February 2025
The United States of America is experiencing a housing crisis, which, by some estimates, started in the early 2000s and was made worse by the financial crisis of the 2007-2008 recession. Hundreds of thousands of Americans lack decent and affordable housing or everyday shelter. Instead, they must live in tent encampments stowed in the niches of neighborhoods and under the freeway overpasses of many major U.S. cities, often in unsafe conditions. Signs of this crisis are all around:

in the spikes of evictions, in nationwide problems with over- and under-development, and in the growing concerns about the sustainability of this nation's towns and cities in the face of global climate change. This crisis didn't arise from the specific circumstances of the housing market or shortfalls in the construction of new homes or increased labor and material costs. The current housing crisis is the result of state-sponsored discrimination in housing and land-use policy and the enforcement of racial and class-based discrimination by neighborhoods and cities. All of these phenomena have had long-lasting effects on access to housing and educational and economic opportunity. Just Shelter is a work of political philosophy that examines the core injustices of the contemporary U.S. housing crisis and its relation to enduring racial injustices. It examines the harms of segregation, and asks: are desegregation or integration morally required of our communities and societies? Are the concerns that are expressed about gentrification related to the moral and political concerns that we have with segregation? Is there a moral imperative, and would it be politically legitimate, for our communities and society to mitigate or stop gentrification? Just Shelter investigates gentrification, segregation, desegregation, integration, and homelessness.

To achieve justice in social-spatial arrangements, federal, state, and local governments must prioritize the crafting and enforcement of housing policy that corrects the injustices of the past. If we do not address the history of racism in housing policy, we will never solve today's housing crisis.
By:  
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 203mm,  Width: 145mm,  Spine: 38mm
Weight:   408g
ISBN:   9780190948146
ISBN 10:   0190948140
Pages:   272
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Ronald R. Sundstrom is Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Francisco. He is also a member of USF's African American Studies program, teaches for the university's Honors College, and is the Humanities Advisor for the SF Urban Film Festival. His research has focused on the philosophy of race, mixed-race identity and politics, political and social philosophy, justice and ethics in urban policy, and African American and Asian American philosophy. He published several essays and a book in these areas, including The Browning of America and the Evasion of Social Justice.

Reviews for Just Shelter: Gentrification, Integration, Race, and Reconstruction

"""Just Shelter is a provocative work of applied philosophy that succeeds on two levels simultaneously. First, it offers a timely and compelling intervention into important contemporary debates around justice in social-spatial arrangements. Second, it vindicates the reconstructive and transformative potential of liberal egalitarian theory to redress historically entrenched patterns of racial injustice. It deserves a wide readership inside and outside of the academy."" -- Sharon Stanley, author of An Impossible Dream?: Racial Integration in the United States ""This is an important book on the moral imperative to address homelessness, inequality, and racial segregation. Deftly drawing on historical and empirical research, Ronald R. Sundstrom offers a vision of a society that provides real equality of opportunity to all its members. Just Shelter will be essential reading for anyone concerned about the myriad problems surrounding housing in the United States."" -- Andrew Valls, author of Rethinking Racial Justice ""Equally conversant in the relevant historical and social science research, as well as liberal egalitarian philosophy and urban political theory, Ronald R. Sundstrom is both well positioned and uniquely qualified to speak to some of the most incendiary debates of our time, subjects that range from neighborhood segregation and the homelessness crisis to gentrification and reparations. He persuasively unsettles many of our assumptions about these and related phenomena while reminding the reader of the importance of crafting policies that are pragmatic and feasible."" -- Michael S. Merry, author of Educational Justice: Liberal Ideals, Persistent Inequality and the Constructive Uses of Critique"


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