Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land

Housing stability is a pressing concern for many communities, particularly during times when constructing new housing can be financially daunting. Lauren Everett emphasizes a straightforward solution in her book Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land: at home in Santa Monica’s rent-controlled housing. Rent control policies can be implemented at no cost, an approach that not only provides an immediate mechanism to stabilize housing but ensures fairness and sustainability. 

Show Notes:

• New York Times article on the New York City Rent Freeze mentioned in the episode: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/25/nyregion/nyc-rent-freeze-vote-mamdani.html 
• If you are looking for more evidence that rent-stabilized apartments don't have a higher instance of habitability issues than non-stabilized this report from NYC is a good resource.
• The NLIHC just came out with their national renter survey, which is really exciting. It has data on the percentage of renters who experience maintenance issues, who report them, who get them addressed, etc. 
• Further Reading: 
  • In Defence of Housing: The Politics of Crisis by David Madden and Peter Marcuse
  • Carving Out the Commons: Tenant Organizing and Housing Cooperatives in Washington, D.C. by Amanda Huron
  • Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis by Tracey Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis
  • Against Landlords: How to Solve the Housing Crisis by Nick Bano
  • The Underserving Poor: America's Enduring Confrontation with Poverty: Fully Updated and Revised by Michael Katz
• To help support the show, pick up a copy of the book through our Bookshop page at https://bookshop.org/shop/bookedonplanning or get a copy through your local bookstore!
• To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/

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Transcript

Fortunate People

[00:00:00] As a planner, you know how important it is to build community and keep your skills sharp. Learn about urban literature hot off the press, get exclusive inside looks at the publishing process directly from publishers, participate in a live podcast interview, go on a guided walking tour exploring unique architectural and planning history, and network with other bookworms.

Experience all of this and more at Booked on Planning's inaugural book summit. This October 12th and 13th, come gather within the heart of Charlottesville, Virginia, a city that knows what it means to innovate. Whether you're an urban planner or a book enthusiast, secure your spot today at www.bookedonplanning.com/summit.

Turn the page on your next professional adventure. [00:01:00] 

Stephanie Rouse: Welcome back, bookworms. I'm Stephanie Rouse. 

Jennifer Hiatt: And I'm Jennifer Hyatt. 

Stephanie Rouse: And we're the hosts of the Booked On Planning Podcast. In today's episode, we talk with author Lauren Everett on her book, Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land: At Home in Santa Monica's Rent-Controlled Housing. This one was a pretty timely book.

You'll notice our release cover photo is actually from California. I wasn't in Santa Monica, I was in Santa Maria, but still a very high-cost California city that probably could use some rent control based on the friend I was visiting, her, search for housing in that area. 

Jennifer Hiatt: That's fair. It was equally timely given that New York City their new mayor just [00:02:00] approved some new rent control measures on the East Coast as well

Stephanie Rouse: what's interesting about New York City that we talk about in the episode is that they are one of the first cities to have enacted rent control back during World War I, which was really interesting to me reading this book. I had no idea how old rent control actually was. 

Jennifer Hiatt: Yeah, same, and it surprised me that it even went back even a little further to Washington, DC as well.

So a city I don't really think about for rent control.

Stephanie Rouse: if you want to learn about these kinds of topics and more, we are hosting our first ever inaugural book summit in Charlottesville, Virginia this October 12th and 13th. We're really excited to be able to host this event and bring in authors with books coming out this year, some that we've covered on the show, to be able to talk to attendees present on a variety of different topics.

A, a lot of us planners, some of us are specialized in certain topic areas, but a lot of us just like a whole bunch of things, transportation, [00:03:00] housing, urban design. So hopefully this event brings that alive. 

Jennifer Hiatt: I'm particularly excited about our keynote speaker who will be talking about her memoir on her travels across the world but with that planner perspective, as she is a trained planner.

So I think that will be one of the more interesting sessions that we have. 

Stephanie Rouse: Yeah. And if you wanna learn more, feel free to go to our website at www.bookedonplanning.com/summit. 

Jennifer Hiatt: and now let's get into our conversation with author Lauren Everett on her book, Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land: At Home in Santa Monica's Rent-Controlled Housing.

Stephanie Rouse: Lauren, thank you so much for joining us on Booked On Planning to talk about your book, Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land: At Home in Santa Monica's Rent-Controlled Housing. To lay the foundations for our conversation, can you give our audience a brief history of rent control? 

Lauren Everett: Yeah, sure. I'll try to, I'll try to summarize.

So I'm not gonna include agrarian and tenant organizing, [00:04:00] so we'll just do urban. And there was no agrarian rent control anyway. But the first place in the United States to have rent control was actually Washington, DC, and that happened during World War I because there was a lot of price gouging going on with all of the people coming into the city for the war effort.

So that was actually a decision that was made by policymakers. And then simultaneous to that time, there was a lot of tenant organizing going on in New York City, which has a very rich history of tenant organizing going back to the early 20th century with mostly Jewish workers.

... So it came out of labor organizing on the Lower East Side. So they were really inspired by tactics that the labor movement had used obviously to win, fair wages and different labor concessions. So that movement was really built upon, and then when the World War I was going on and the same type of price gouging was going on because there was a housing shortage with more people in the city, they were able to win out of tenant [00:05:00] organizing.

So they won emergency temporary state level rent control. That was the second place to have rent control. And so we can see with the victory yesterday actually, New York City just got a rent freeze ... they have a complicated system there, but rent stabilized tenants with one and two-year leases, so that's really building on over 100 years tradition of tenant organizing in New York City.

 both of those laws were temporary just during the war pretty much, so they ended a few years later. And then during World War II, at the federal level, there was the Emergency Price Control Act, and so that controlled the prices of a lot of different commodity goods, including housing.

And basically localities could choose to set up an office that would do rent freezes and basically handle rent increases on a case by case basis. So there were a lot of those offices all over the country, and as far as I know, New York City is the only place that elected to continue that.

So New York City has had rent control since [00:06:00] World War II in some form or another, and it's changed over the years. And I'm not an expert at all on New York City's rent control, just to be clear. So then kinda after, there were a lot of seasoned political organizers coming out of the '60s, and then in the early '70s they built on that momentum to start thinking about how rent control, could be brought to different cities in the US that were having a lot of issues with, again, price gouging.

 So this kind of started picking up in like early mid-'70s, and my knowledge is mostly about California. That's where I'm from. That's where the book takes place. But so we had a lot of local movements, tenant-driven San Francisco, Los Angeles Santa Monica obviously, and they had kinda different-- there were different types of coalitions and different people driving them.

In Santa Monica, it was a lot of seniors, and it was a lot of organizers who had moved from different parts of the country, and also, w-were living in Santa Monica at that time, obviously. that time, I think [00:07:00] that the theory was that Southern California really wasn't politically left enough to have a tenant movement.

 But I think just because that was the era where everyone was, really kinda learning about organizing, they were able to build that coalition and bring rent control to a number of cities in Southern California and in Northern California. Then there was a backlash, of course. So there was a neoliberal kinda backlash in mid-'80s through early '90s, where there are a few state laws implemented in California, the Ellis Act and the Costa-Hawkins, which severely limit rent control and what it can do and how effective it can be.

 And that's just reflective of what was going on at the time in a bunch of different states. So Cambridge had rent control, and that was repealed at the state level, and then they put many states have this, so there's a state-level prohibition on local rent control ordinances. So that was their way of kinda getting around what localities need for their [00:08:00] communities.

And now we're in a third wave of tenant organizing for rent control, so more things happening now, including yesterday's major victory in New York City. 

Jennifer Hiatt: Yeah. I have to admit so we've had a few books in past episodes that focused on Washington, DC, and it was still surprising to me that was like the first movement of rent control, ' cause we've heard about the public housing that they offered and now don't offer, and the gentrification of DC.

 do you know, does DC still have rent control policies? 

Lauren Everett: Yeah, so their, W- World War I policies ended after that time because they were just temporary, but then in the late ' 70s when they got, late to mid-'70s, when they got their first city council, that was one of the first things that city council implemented.

 So yes, they do have rent control now. I was just reading that it exempts property owners that own less than four or five properties, which is interesting and a very moderate, detail to that policy. But yes, they do have it now. 

Jennifer Hiatt: Okay, awesome. And the title of your book is Fortunate [00:09:00] People in a Fortunate Land.

 striking, almost ironic ring to it depending on how you look at the housing crisis and being in California. So what's the origin of the phrase, and how does it encapsulate the complex reality of living in Santa Monica with the rent-controlled units?

Lauren Everett: Yeah, so it's actually a translation of the city motto, which is in Latin, and it's one of a few translations. It was something that a interview participant in my study actually brought up, and it was funny 'cause I grew up in Santa Monica and in Venice, which is an adjacent community, and I went to Santa Monica High School.

I was born in the public hospital, but I had never, I didn't know the city motto. So that was news to me, but I thought it was such a beautiful phrase, and it does capture that bittersweetness of it's such a beautiful place. Every time I go there, I'm "I can't believe I grew up here."

The beach is gorgeous and Palisades Park and the canyon. But it's really difficult to gain access, financially to housing. I do know someone who recently moved there, and I'm so impressed 'cause they're definitely not wealthy. So I'm like, "Wow, you made it work somehow."

But yeah it does feel like [00:10:00] that gilded city on the hill now, where it has some of the most expensive rents in Los Angeles County. So yeah, fortunate for the few who can afford it or who are lucky enough to live in a rent-controlled home.

Stephanie Rouse: So rent control has a lot of benefits to renters that are able to live in these units, health, economic benefits, but landlords often react to rent control, as demonstrated in your book, in ways that can counteract these positive benefits. What are some of the negative ways that renters from your Santa Monica study were most impacted?

Lauren Everett: Yeah, some of the most common issues renters experience are, deferred maintenance, having to really ask multiple times for something to be fixed or for maintenance to be done, maintenance that's not done right it has to be done again. Yeah, the maintenance issues were really the main issues.

But it's interesting because I used to volunteer on the renters' rights hotline here in Portland, and that's before Oregon had the state-level rent regulation or just cause eviction, so there were very [00:11:00] comparatively few tenant protections with Santa Monica. But yet, honestly it was a lot of the same issues.

So while I haven't done a study about a non-controlled context, and I'd love to, I think that there are a lot of the same issues. I think the difference in Santa Monica and in other places with strong rent regulation is that you have a convergence of these three factors. So there's the policy context, both local and state, and those state-level loopholes in California really shape, the efficacy of the local policy.

And then there's market knowledge, so if someone's lived in their apartment for 20, 30, 40 years, they have this gigantic rent gap that they're completely aware of. Everyone talks to everyone and hears what the rents are and sees, whatever listings. And then there's the landlord as an individual, like what their business model is, what their portfolio is like, what their personality is like.

So all those things come together and, yeah, there, there are situations with participants where definitely they either, felt like the landlord wanted them to leave or they [00:12:00] just felt like the landlord was taking advantage of a power imbalance and flexing. Perhaps there was some harassment going on or maybe they were just, having a bad day or something else was going on in their life and they were taking it out on the tenant.

But the silver lining is in Santa Monica, tenants actually have recourse with the city. They actually have, two city offices where they can go, depending on the issue. The city attorney's office has a special division for renter issues, and then the rent control office, something can be escalated to the rent control board if need be.

So while definitely that rent gap incentivizes some landlords to behave in bad faith, the good news is that tenants have some resources to fix their issues.

Jennifer Hiatt: So when you think about policy debates for rent control, most of the time even well-meaning people who approach rent control from a positive perspective focus primarily on the macroeconomic data of rent control, supply and demand graphs, developer profits, which aren't necessarily a good way to look at it.

 [00:13:00] Your book takes a very different approach by focusing on the lived experiences of the tenants in this book as well. You build on all of that. I think you've touched on this a little bit already, but what inspired you to center those human stories, and what do economists usually miss out when they ignore the psychological side of housing when they talk about rent control?

Lauren Everett: Yeah, that's such an important question. So I work in the housing policy field, so I go to, forums and round tables and meetings and all kinds of, different places where people discuss largely housing production, and this is very important, so not to discount the importance of that work.

But I think what it often misses is what happens after the housing is complete and people start moving in, and there's such a lack of emphasis on that and a lack of consideration around that. And now, in the affordable housing world, at least in Portland, we're in this place where we're realizing that resident services aren't fully funded, that property management, especially for people in permanent supportive housing or that have the higher level of needs, is not appropriate, and there's all kinds of [00:14:00] problems, and the whole portfolio's really suffering.

we're not talking about affordable housing specifically, but that really speaks to the importance of the residential experience. So I discovered this amazing sociologist, Jim Kemeny, He's no longer with us, but he was a British sociologist, and he was inspired by his personal experiences as a renter living in apartments in a few different countries that have really different cultural contexts and policy contexts around renting, and he noticed that his experience was different.

 So that inspired him to create this idea of the sociology of residence and really call from a shift in housing policy and housing studies to always be so focused on the sticks and bricks, to start thinking about how the experience is connected to context how the dwelling, experience happens on different levels.

It's not just literally the residence, right? It's the neighborhood and the city. And then I was able to connect that to what I know from my personal experience, My dad lived in a rent-controlled apartment in Santa Monica for about 35 years, [00:15:00] 40 years. I lived in a rent-controlled apartment in LA for 10 years, and then of course lots of friends live in rent-controlled apartments versus working, with tenants here, volunteering on a hotline and then I was in the tenant union for five years.

So just hearing a lot of stories and comparing and knowing that these policies really make a huge difference in people's lives and that is just getting left out, is completely getting left out of academic inquiry even that's supportive of rent control, but that takes that macro analysis.

So we're really trying to bring it back to what is the on-the-ground experience of living with these policies?

Stephanie Rouse: Yeah, and on that line of thought, you'd mentioned this in your book and a couple episodes ago we covered the book Homes for a Living, and they mentioned it as well, how our entire housing system is a commodified system, that we only look at housing and the economic returns and not how it can actually house people, which is what it's totally intended for.

And so we lose that human side of thinking about [00:16:00] housing and base our decisions solely on what we can get out of the housing. 

Lauren Everett: Yeah. 

Stephanie Rouse: So there are some states out there that are looking at rent control legislation, and I was on a call last month with some APA chapters, American Planning Association chapters, who are in states that have legislation for rent control, and they're on the fence of whether they should weigh in.

Is that something important to their chapter members? And a step further, whether they should support that kind of legislation. What advice would you give them? 

Lauren Everett: being a part of these housing production conversations, the main thing that's coming up is where are we getting the money? Where's the money gonna come from all these, for all these great ideas?

Obviously, the federal government is not a partner right now almost at all. They did expand LIHTC, but LIHTC housing has a lot of issues that I won't go into with how the AMI, levels are set and everything. So yeah, in a time of, fiscal austerity, and also we have an all-time high cost burden for renters.

Half of the country's renters are [00:17:00] cost-burdened. This is a cost-neutral policy. It is free to implement if you set the landlord registration fees appropriately, which can be shared with the tenant. So it's a free, proven policy that immediately stabilizes renter households in your communities during a time when it's very difficult to find the money to build the housing, not to mention the construction costs.

So all of the things converging, to me, this is just common sense. And when you consider also public investments and rent assistance, so we have a local voucher program here in the metro region, which is a tri-county region in Portland. I used to work for the local government, but it's an amazing program.

But one thing that wasn't accounted for was rising rents, and a lot of the people who were using vouchers moved into newer buildings that aren't under the state-level rent regulation policy. So it's oh, all of a sudden the cost of these vouchers is way more than we thought it was gonna be. So it reduces public [00:18:00] expenditure, including with Section 8 vouchers, and including the need to create more affordable housing.

 And then I would also say this, there's almost, there's about 160 jurisdictions now that have some form of rent regulation, and very few of them have repealed those policies, and most of them have been in place for decades. So to me, that speaks to they must be working on some level, or there would be more, more rollbacks.

And in fact, they're more expanding than anything else. Los Angeles just set a lower cap, for example,

so. 

Stephanie Rouse: I think it is really interesting, and it didn't really occur to me until your book, that everything at the federal level and larger organizations like American Planning Association, Home Builders Association, the solution has always been, how can we build more units, and how do we reduce regulations to build more units?

It's been very much build our way out of it, not policies like rent control that have no fiscal impact that could be implemented today. 

Lauren Everett: Yeah, and what we're seeing, 'cause I just attended the Joint Center at Harvard's State of the Nation's [00:19:00] Housing panel, not in person but remotely, I think it was last week.

And so we have, supply's actually like, at a decent place for market. Demand is down, though, because people can't afford market rates. So we have this situation where vacancy, vacancy's going up. The panel was pretty much unanimous. They were unanimous, actually, in saying that we need to now do, focus on targeted supply, not just build anything, but we need to specifically be building for the lower income and middle income levels.

So I'm really glad that we're finally at that place with the conversation because I've always felt skeptical about just build anything and it will work out. 

Jennifer Hiatt: do you think the provisions in the Road to Housing bill that were just passed are really going to impact bringing housing more into that affordability rate?

Part of the conversation is we need to get rid of the regulations that gum up the works and all of that. So what are your thoughts on those provisions, and when do you think we'll feel that impact? 

Lauren Everett: I've read a few [00:20:00] articles about what's in that bill. I couldn't give you a list of what's in that bill.

But in general, in terms of removing regulations I'm curious to see what happens as well. I'm not a finance person, so I'd be really curious to talk to some developers and see what they think, like how helpful those things actually are. As I think we all know, just the cost of materials and labor and insurance, and, there's so many other things.

So yeah I think that there were a few kinda small things oh, if we fix this it'll reduce the costs by, X amount. And it's okay, maybe that's enough to make it worth someone's while. I don't know. But- I guess we'll see. And then I do have the concern that, for example, there was a case recently in LA that I was kinda helping some friends with where there's a big, five or six story kind of luxury looking apartment complex that's proposed or it's going to be happening where they're tearing down seven or eight low-rise rent control departments and displacing all the tenants.

And city council basically can't vote against it because it's in the housing element for California. So the attorney [00:21:00] general could technically fine the city. So it's ugh, that is a unintended consequence that's pretty grave. So I do feel concerned about things like that, and I think we need to be really thoughtful about anti-displacement 

Jennifer Hiatt: And on that line of we're getting rid of these old buildings we're not thinking things all the way through one of the things that I didn't really think about is the stigma that's around rent-controlled tenants, and that they are getting away with something, which was wild to me, or they're just lucky lottery winners.

 How does your research challenge this narrative, and how does housing stability actually transform an individual's ability to contribute to their wider community? 

Lauren Everett: one of my participants did mention that in certain spaces she got that vibe, like she was, like, deviant in some way for living in her home long term.

 There are so many policies that advantage property owners. I'm a homeowner. I'm not even a renter anymore, but my-- I have a fixed-term mortgage, and I think most people do, and I would not have bought this house if I didn't, if that wasn't available [00:22:00] to me. I can't even imagine. So first of all, there's nothing unreasonable about a modest rent increase.

No one's stealing anything. But yeah, most of my participants were really deeply rooted in their communities, even people that were newer and had only lived in Santa Monica for three or four years. And I think over two-thirds do some kind of volunteer activity, so that could range from like a one-off, like a few times a year, to like some folks were really deeply involved and were on boards and gave really a lot of time to different types of organizations.

 So it's not a guarantee that someone's going to contribute just because they can live somewhere for longer, but I would argue that it's much more likely that they will if they not only they just end up living there, but they know that they can live there. There's predictability, and it makes people feel like, it's worth their while to invest their time.

They get to know their neighbors. They help their neighbors out, like neighboring behavior, right? Like pet sit or get mail or whatever. you know, all of those things make a place more pleasant to live. People have more stability, and [00:23:00] they become more rooted and more entwined in their environment.

 I think the double standard of tenants are getting away with something because they have predictable housing costs versus homeowners or, commercial property owners, that's just normal, and it's fine, and like the mortgage interest deduction and among other policies just examining that thought and that assumption 

Stephanie Rouse: So speaking of long-term renters, there's this misconception out there that renters rent because they want freedom to be mobile and move often, but that's not necessarily true, and a lot of the participants in your study prove that.

 Why is this narrative so prevalent? 

Lauren Everett: I think because renters have not, first of all, with the structure of renting as a tenure, have not had the ability to be stable unless they're living in a place that has a renters market and they can stay as long as they want.

It's also poverty. It's also the types of work that lower income people have historically done more where it might require moving around more. So there's a lot [00:24:00] of reasons that renters have been more mobile perhaps, but just because they have been more mobile doesn't mean that they want to be more mobile.

So I think it's really just a conflation of those two things, like what's the cause, what's the effect? 20% of tenants in Santa Monica's rent-controlled housing have lived in their homes for over 25 years. Some of the people in my study had over 40 years of tenancy. One person was actually in her apartment since before rent control was passed, which I thought was very impressive.

 So it really shows, everyone's circumstances are different. Some people move around for whatever reason, and they wanna be able to do that, including homeowners. But transience is not an intrinsic feature of renting if it doesn't have to be.

Jennifer Hiatt: opponents of rent control will the argument that it stifles new construction makes it really hard to put together land to build these brand-new projects like you were talking about earlier, or it leads to landlords who will neglect their property maintenance because what's the point in investing 'cause they're not going to maximize their profits?

 Based on [00:25:00] your findings, how should policymakers weigh those traditional market arguments against the tangible social benefits of community preservation and tenant wellbeing? 

Lauren Everett: Yeah, so the argument about the stifling new construction is like a time-worn chestnut that real estate investors, the real estate investment lobby, have been saying for a long time.

 And there's academic literature from the economic perspective that supports that and that refutes that, so it's not, it's really not a settled question which is also interesting. And I actually read a great article that I think came out last year, maybe it was earlier this year, that's a meta-analysis of how research about rent control has informed policy-making. And one of the points that they make is that research that kind of flattens all of the effects of all these different rent regulation policies into one is ignoring just so much nuance and so much local context, and nuance in the policy itself that it's really not, the findings aren't particularly credible or [00:26:00] helpful.

 But yeah, I think more importantly the argument really is a thinly veiled threat, and that feels very problematic to me, and it presents a false binary that policymakers, you can either continue to build housing to accommodate growing population and, expanding households, or you can stabilize people who already live in your community, many of whom are the most vulnerable community members.

' Cause of course also people of color, disabled people, elderly, you know, are more likely to be renters. My response to that would be don't throw tenants under the bus. There has got to be a way to do both, and that is your job as a policymaker. Real estate investment industry lobbyists, it's an investment.

It's a business. They wanna make money, and I get that. But you have to always keep that in mind when listening to that argument. Something that I would be really curious to see is some actual numbers and an actual breakdown of that argument. I have never seen that. I've never heard a detailed explanation of why that's the case other than, oh, investors are scared when there's regulation.

 If we had national rent control, I guess they'd have to [00:27:00] just deal with it which is not likely to happen any time soon. 

Jennifer Hiatt: I get very frustrated hearing, "Oh well, so-and-so's afraid of regulation." Regulations exist for a reason, and it's because if you are only interested in maximizing your profit, you lock hundreds of women into your building and let it burn.

 I just- ... I cannot stand that argument, so sorry about that. 

Lauren Everett: No, please. Yeah. It, 100%. I often will say "So you don't want regulations for auto safety, food safety, drug safety?" Like you don't want any regulations? Imagine well, I mean, our president's working on it, but imagine how crazy everything would be.

Jennifer Hiatt: Yeah, we could go White Rivers on fire again every other day. Like it'd be perfectly lovely to live in that world, right? 

Lauren Everett: Yeah. So I think that's point number one. And definitely to ask for more... press them. Press them for an explanation. If your lobbyist is saying, "Oh they just wanna invest," we gotta figure out a way, we gotta figure out a way to stabilize people that already live here and to accommodate for population growth.

 But also, like I was saying earlier, there's so many barriers to developing housing profitably [00:28:00] that at this point, this seems you're gonna complain 'cause you can't raise the rent more than... Let's say that there was a graduated approach, and let's say that new construction was, like, 10% a year, which is still a lot, but, like, why would you have to raise the rent more than that on a brand-new building?

That also doesn't make sense. So again pick apart the argument. Ask them. Press them. I just wish that would happen more often. I feel like there's so much fear, and I understand. We're in a, we're in a very tough situation with housing and homelessness. But yeah, just the fear-based decisions at the expense of, people living in their communities who could be locked into paying an affordable rent, or at least a sustainable rent for now, right?

But instead, we're just letting, we're just letting that go. So yeah, cost-neutral policy can be implemented right now

Stephanie Rouse: So in the book, you discuss the concepts of place and residential alienation. What are they, and how do they impact renters? 

Lauren Everett: So residential alienation, as to my knowledge, was coined by Peter Marcuse in the '70s, and he wrote an article outlining [00:29:00] what it was, and then he expanded on it In Defense of Housing, which is his classic book with David Madden, which is one of my book picks.

And the s- just the simplest explanation is it's when you don't feel at home in the place where you live. So that could be due to any number of factors. It could be, like, a roommate you don't get along with or a partner. It could be that you're paying too much rent and it's creating stress and you can't buy other things you need.

 It could be that there's, maintenance issues and deterioration physically in the home. So it's just not being able to feel at home. And then place alienation is something that happens when you have place attachment, which is probably pretty self-explanatory, but is a concept that comes from cultural geography and environmental psychology.

And that really happens in my interviews and also just in my personal experience when a place changes over time and you no longer recognize it. And that's a very painful experience because if a place is a reflection of you and vice versa and you don't see yourself reflected in it anymore, there's a really, a severance that's happening.

And [00:30:00] definitely some people in my study, especially the more, the longer-term tenants, were really struggling with that. And Santa Monica's just had such major socioeconomic changes since I grew up there. It's... I wouldn't say it's unrecognizable 'cause some things are strangely exactly the same.

But I was there a few years ago when I was looking for just an affordable lunch, and I just walked back and forth on the street, and I was just like, there's nothing. There's nowhere to just get a reasonably priced meal here. So yeah, those are a lot of the things that I'm hearing from the participants, really feeling conflicted "I'm rooted here.

I love this place. I'm so connected to it, but I also don't feel comfortable in certain places, and I don't really know who who these stores are for, and who are these people?" I think this is, of course, something that people are struggling with not only all over this country but all over the world in cities that have experienced a lot of socioeconomic changes.

So that's, yeah, that's a limitation. Rent control can't do anything about that. Maybe if we had commercial rent control, I don't know. But yeah, residential rent control cannot.

Jennifer Hiatt: Ultimately, your book [00:31:00] reframes housing as a fundamental component of human dignity rather than just a financial asset, which I think is a good way to reframe housing. But looking forward, how do you hope that Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land shifts our cultural conversation around what home is in America?

Lauren Everett: I hope we start considering what home really means. And by that I mean that it goes beyond housing and the actual residential structure, and it exists on all these different scales. Your neighborhood, your block, your apartment building, or, your immediate next-door neighbors and your city.

And the housing is really just an access point. Not to say that it's not important, 'cause it's also a refuge, but it's- it's your access to like, this wider scale of places. Also, the importance of people. I mean, That also... I did my master's thesis on sense of place in this neighborhood I really love in Portland, and that was such a recurring theme, and it has been in this research, too.

I mean, It's not shocking, but it's not just "I like this neighborhood, I like this city," it's the people in it. And [00:32:00] that includes people that you don't even necessarily know. Sometimes, participants mention "Oh, it's just nice going to the store and recognizing the cashiers," or "Recognizing this old person walking their dog."

" So really just seeing home as a rich, vibrant concept and not just hyper-focused on housing. But yeah, and it supports us in so many ways on an individual level, a household level, and also collectively, 'cause we're all, woven together in a healthy community, anyway.

People and places are intertwined, so that means that places aren't only, something you get something from, but also something that you give to. So it's really I think a healthy community is one where it's going both ways, and that's actually what I love about living in Portland because people are very community-minded and give a lot of time to shaping their environment.

So yeah, if you want people to take care of places where they live and make them awesome and make them thriving and vibrant, you have to find a way to make it that they- so they can stay there and that they can live there, and housing is the access point. 

Jennifer Hiatt: And as this is Booked on Planning, [00:33:00] what are some other books that you would recommend our listeners check out?

Lauren Everett: Yeah, I'm just gonna look up on my bookshelf here. First of all, I wanna call out Amanda Huron's, and I know that someone else mentioned this, Carving Out the Commons, because I'm very excited about limited equity co-ops and tenant opportunity to purchase policy, and she just ... That's such a wonderful case study.

 So yeah, just shouting that out. Abolish Rent by Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis from LA Tenants Union is a really beautiful visionary book. And then Against Landlords by Nick Banos is also really great, that looks at the British context, which is interesting because we have buildings where each apartment is owned by a different landlord, so very challenging for tenant organizing.

 And also The Undeserving Poor is a really interesting book that looks at poverty related policies and how we decide who deserves help, basically. So yeah, I think those would be my picks. And of course, In Defense of Housing, as I mentioned earlier 

Stephanie Rouse: [00:34:00] A lot of great books to add to our bookshelf, virtual bookshelf.

 Lauren, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to talk about your book, Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land: At Home in Santa Monica's Rent-Controlled Housing. 

Lauren Everett: Thank you so much. Yeah, this was fun

Jennifer Hiatt: We hope you enjoyed this conversation with author Lauren Everett on her book, Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land: At Home in Santa Monica's Rent-Controlled Housing. You can get your own copy through the publisher at Temple University Press by supporting your local bookstore or supporting the show through our page at bookshop.org/shop/bookedonplanning.

 Remember to subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and please rate, review, and share the show. Thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time on Booked on Planning 

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