Diverging Space for Deviants

the long version

"This book explores the typically overlooked positive role of public housing--in a political, social, and spatial sense--in facilitating social movements and activism. With Atlanta as the case study, the author suggests that the decline in support for public housing, often touted as a positive (neoliberal) development, actually has negative consequences for social justice and nascent activism, especially among black women. Urban renewal policies target public housing residents by demolishing public housing towers and dispersing poor (black) residents into new, deconcentrated spaces in the city via Housing Choice Vouchers and other housing-based tools of economic and urban development. Deviants in Divergent Spaces establishes alternative functions for public housing developments that would necessitate their existence in any city. In addition to providing affordable housing for low-income residents - a necessity as wealth inequality in cities is increasing - public housing developments function as a necessary political space in the city, one of the last remaining frontiers for citizens to engage in inclusive political activity and make claims on the changing face of the State"--