Homes for Living

The Fight for Social Housing and a New American Commons

De: Jonathan Tarleton

Narrado por: Max Newland

A tale of two NYC affordable housing co-ops’ struggle over privatization, public goods, and the future of American housing

The American Dream of homeownership is becoming an American Delusion. As renters seek an escape from record-breaking rent hikes, first-time buyers find that skyrocketing interest rates and historically low inventory leave them with scant options for an affordable place to live. With home valued more than ever as a commodity, even social housing programs meant to insulate families from cut-throat markets are under threat—sometimes by residents themselves.

In Homes for Living, urban planner and oral historian Jonathan Tarleton introduces listeners to two social housing co-ops in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Longtime residents of St. James Towers and Southbridge Towers lock horns over whether to maintain the rules that have kept their homes affordable for decades or to cash out at great personal profit, thereby denying future generations the same opportunity to build thriving communities rooted in mutual care.

With a deft hand for mapping personal histories atop the greater housing crisis, Tarleton explores housing as a public good, movements for tenant rights and Indigenous sovereignty, and questions of race and class to lay bare competing visions of what ownership means, what homes are for, and what neighbors owe each other.

©2025 Jonathan Tarleton (P)2025 Beacon Press Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Around the country, residents are rising up and fighting for social housing. With Homes for Living, Jonathan Tarleton deepens our understanding of what that struggle entails: what it takes to win, and how to defend against the pull of privatization.”—Samuel Stein, author of Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State

“Jonathan Tarleton’s account of the battle for Southbridge Towers is an engrossing feat of reporting and a New York City tragedy. The protagonists of Homes for Living are engaged in nothing less than a contest of two opposing visions of the American Dream, and everyone who wants to understand the challenges of creating affordable housing in this country needs to read their story.”—Henry Grabar, author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World

“Sometimes the general is best understood through the particular, and the particular in this book is a wild roller-coaster ride through two New York City co-ops deciding something all of us are deciding all the time: how to weigh individual versus collective benefit, the private versus the public good. Jonathan Tarleton unpacks this drama with both vivid detail and brilliant context.”—Rebecca Solnit, coauthor of Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas

A passionate, knowledgeable, and fair parable on the topic of housing and ownership that resulted in work of literary art.

I appreciated the compare and contrast organization of the book and the insightful ending that pulled it all together. The book has a brilliant pace, for a nonfiction work, and made you want to know how the residents of the communities fared in present day. The book encouraged me to evaluate my own beliefs on what a home means and ownership in a broader sense. I would love to have a conversation with the author to further inform me on topics that I typically do not think about.