When I first got to Baltimore there were a lot of studies on cities, and I became very involved in the problem of housing -- housing finance, housing collapse i

When I first got to Baltimore there were a lot of studies on cities, and I became very involved in the problem of housing -- housing finance, housing collapse in the inner city, housing conditions in general. I was fascinated to do a series of reports for the city, and also for other agencies, about how to approach the whole question of urban regeneration, which is very much on the agenda there. It was extraordinary to me that some of the ideas I got for that came out of reading Engels's famous saying on the condition of the working class in England in 1844; and also the housing question where he says the bourgeoisie had only one way to solve its housing problem: it moved it around. When I started to look at what some of the proposals were, they were about gentrification, which, in effect, would displace people and just simply move the problem around. So I made a big pitch in these reports, saying, "If you're going to address this question, you can't address it in a way that simply moves it around. In order not to move it around, we have to deal with basic questions about income distribution, wealth and the like, and, also, of course, racism, and housing markets and so on." This was a very important principle that came out of reading Engels, and then importing it. I put it into these reports; I didn't cite Engels. I didn't cite Engels, and everybody thought this was a fantastic insight, and somebody said to me, "Where did you get that from?" I said, "From Engels," and they said, "Who is he?" "Tom Engels, the local congressman"! "Does he work for the Brookings Institution?" or something like that. It was funny. But this was how I would sometimes find myself using this stuff in factual ways, and it resonated with people. I got a lot of encouragement to stay with this framework, that when you actually laid it out, used it in this way, using these kinds of concepts, people understood what you meant. The only time they turn around and walk the other way is when you tell them where it came from. http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people4/Harvey/harvey-con2.html http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people4/Harvey/harvey-con2....