Sunbelt Blues: Guest lecture recap

On Tuesday, March 15, NYU’s Dr. Andrew Ross delivered a guest lecture, sponsored by the Urban and Regional Planning Department and the Student Planning Association (SPA) for students across the College of Design, Construction, and Planning’s disciplines.

The lecture focused on Dr. Ross’ new book Sunbelt Blues: The Failure of American Housing, which uses a mix of investigative journalism and scholarly reporting to provide a sobering message from the frontlines of Florida’s affordable housing crisis.  A recording of the lecture is available here.

The book is organized in six parts to identify the challenges working class Floridians face on a day-to-day basis as rent values continue to climb and the affordable housing stock dwindles.  The study area is along US Highway 192 in Osceola County and Dr. Ross’ work includes stories from long-term renters in motels and members of homeless encampments in the woods near commercial centers while also illustrating the role that the financialization of housing, vacation rental properties, and Disney World play in the crisis.

Sunbelt Blues is available here.  Dr. Andrew Ross is the author of over twenty-five books, including The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Values in Disney’s New Town, and contributes to the Guardian, the New York Times, The Nation, and Al Jazeera.  He is professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU.  For more information on his books and about his research, visit his website.