An illuminating portrait of today’s housing crisis.
A banker explains the rising inequality in the housing industry.
With nearly 40 years of experience in banking and as a member of the National Association of Realtors, Nelson has witnessed a frightening transformation in the housing industry. Despite the sacrifices he made for his kids, like many grandparents across the country, he sees his grandchildren “working harder than I did at their ages” and spending over half of their combined family incomes on housing. Central to America’s crisis (including a massive increase in homelessness) is that affordable and “low-income housing is simply vanishing from the marketplace” while apartments and condos at the other end of the spectrum are oversupplied. Moreover, racial discrimination has historically plagued housing, perhaps more than any single industry. The author fears that given the industry’s reliance on models generated by artificial intelligence, “discrimination will, over time, become the norm within the model itself,” as computers are fed data reflecting America’s systemic racial inequities. As reflected in the book’s subtitle, the author blames much of the current system on AI–driven technology. AI platforms treat humans as mere statistical data and allow for the widespread dispersal of tenants’ private information to a myriad of commercial entities. This makes it even more difficult for tenants with a history of missed rent payments to find affordable housing. The consolidation of property owners, property managers, and builders has also had a negative impact, leaving tenants and homeowners with fewer alternatives. Many property management companies have consistent “F” ratings from the Better Business Bureau and have defended themselves in hundreds of civil cases, but because they dominate a limited market, their tenants have few other places to go. Additionally, property managers have increasingly raised fees, particularly related to evictions, which disproportionately impact those who need help the most.
Though he paints a grim picture of a complex subject, Nelson’s righteous anger makes this book a must-read for not only those in the real estate and banking industries, but also for anyone who seeks to understand why, in the words of activist Jimmy McMillan, “Rent Is Too Damn High.” The author combines the indignation and passion of an activist with the technical knowledge of a seasoned banker. Rather than overwhelming readers, page after page of graphs, charts, and data create a damning case against the status quo. The volume also does a fine job of placing today’s housing industrial complex within a historical context. In addition to paying careful attention to the history of racial discrimination in housing, the work also looks to the past for solutions. Like many bankers of the 1920s, today’s property managers and lenders have not “broken any rules,” largely because there are no regulations to honestly hold them accountable. Just like bank customers of the ’30s needed systemwide financial reforms and regulations, today’s tenants and homeowners require empowered government agencies to stave off the worst abuses that plague the housing industry. But this will require difficult ideological and political shifts that prioritize “human rights before property rights.” Spreading public awareness of deep-seated problems in an industry that often hides its abuses in AI–generated models and binders of paperwork is a crucial prerequisite to that uphill political battle. This exposé is an admirable first step toward that goal.
An illuminating portrait of today’s housing crisis. (notes, about the author, acknowledgments)Pub Date: May 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73464-180-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: BRC Publishing House
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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