Book review: Securitisation of Property Squatting in Europe

Abstract

The authors provide an extremely balanced treatment, dividing the text into eight chronological periods. With the rise in highly visible family poverty and homelessness since the 1970s, they might have usefully spent more time analysing the latter period, their treatment of which seems rushed. The overall narrative also seems a little disjointed at times, in part because it is divided into numerous subsections, some of which are quite short.More significantly, the authors' tight focus on New York City sparks questions that remain unanswered. How did New York's treatment of poor families compare with that of other major American cities? Even within New York, to what extent did various statelevel concerns influence developments at the city level? The intriguing way in which the authors have framed their topic also prompts related questions that lie outside the scope of their project. How have New York's poor children fared in terms of educational attainment? New York occupies such a large place in the American imagination -was or is socioeconomic mobility any more possible for impoverished youth than in other states? Future historians of New York will hopefully pursue such lines of inquiry.Nunez and Sribnick have supplemented the narrative with 100 powerful illustrations, including both useful maps and poignant photographs that remind the reader of the millions of people whose stories the authors tell. This is a fine piece of scholarship that will draw interest from not only experts on homelessness and poverty policy, but also from those interested in urban history, childhood development and gender studies.