Critical Planning

Interview with writer, journalist, and organizer Tracy J. Rosenthal about their new book Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis. In it, we talked about their experience co-founding the LA Tenants Union, the history of working class movements in LA, and the synergies between environmental and tenant activism in light of the LA wildfires. The conversation was motivated by a central puzzle: Los Angeles takes up a large role in urban theory, especially the neo-Marxist school of the 1970s, and those descriptions of the city are deeply cynical. Classic accounts emphasize policing, elite “pleasure domes,” and hostility to working-class people and their movements. At the same time, it is the locus of Rosenthal's efforts, and the largest tenants’ union in the country. We spoke in depth about the opportunities and challenges of organizing in this geography, and how place affected Rosenthal's and their comrades’ strategies.