An extremely helpful crash course on the rise of the real estate state, "a political formation in which real estate capital has inordinate influence over the shape of our cities, the parameters of our politics, and the lives we lead." As an (aspiring? practicing?) planner who has only ever lived and worked in the real estate state, it is helpful to read a book that is able to adequately assess these conditions and the challenges they pose for planners, without resigning to them.

The main challenge: in our current capitalist system, nearly every public investment that planners can make can be leveraged into private gain, due to increased land values thanks to these "investments." This, of course, is key to gentrification, which Stein calls "a spatial fix to cities' capital crisis" and "the third stage in a long-term process of capital flow in and out of space."

This is a really helpful reorientation for me, as I am learning to articulate my concerns with the way my job does planning. Many times, I (and many of my left-leaning colleagues) are working through reservations that our bosses are telling us to use the same strategies that led to inequitable outcomes in one city, while expecting they'll work differently in "secondary markets." Sam Stein's work is helpful because it provides alternative strategies (reordered regionalism, socialized land, public stewardship) that planners could use to actually break the wheel altogether. Without these alternatives, even well-meaning, "equitable" initiatives like neighborhood reinvestment (owner-occupied rehab, code enforcement aimed at ending slumlords, and other strategies to help "build self-sustaining housing markets" in disinvested neighborhoods that are not gentrifying) are not enough, and are in fact continuing the speculative development cycle, by promoting what [a:Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor|6753670|Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1505846053p2/6753670.jpg] would call "predatory inclusion."

Moving away from predatory inclusion and towards community control (aka "the pivot towards socialized planning") is exactly what I'm hoping to learn. While this book provides a lot of aspirational policy objectives (many of which planners don't have the authority to control), it also proposes the role of planners in supporting peoples' movements through our work, and gives us tangible steps to get there (such as through securing funding and implementation support for "demonstration projects" that help people see the benefits of socialized planning.) I am excited to keep learning about (and begin practicing!) socialized planning from community members and organizers, practitioner role models in the field, and academics like Sam Stein.