The Help-Yourself City: Legitimacy and Inequality in DIY Urbanism

Gordon C.C. Douglas, The Help-Yourself City: Legitimacy and Inequality in DIY Urbanism (Oxford University Press), 2018.

"From what social and spatial context does the current trend toward an informal, spontaneous, and do-it-yourself (DIY) urbanism emerge? And what, in turn, does this trend say about the American city?"

"A book I have long been waiting for! Douglas explores the diverse ways in which people engage urban space and bring their ideas on to the streets themselves through site-specific planning efforts. The book shows us the broad range of urban knowledges present in any city neighborhood, but also the challenges of negotiating them in public space." --Saskia Sassen, author of Expulsions