The Left’s Surging Urban Activism
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.8 • 615 Ratings
🗓️ 11 September 2019
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
City Journal contributing editor Christopher Rufo joins Brian Anderson to discuss an increasingly influential progressive faction in many cities—one that seeks to rebuild the urban environment to achieve a wide range of environmentalist and social-justice goals.
According to Rufo, these "New Left urbanists" rally around controversial (and often dubious) ideas like banning cars and constructing new public housing projects. While all urban residents want to improve their city's quality-of-life, radical left-wing policies aren’t the way to get there.
Check out Howard Husock's new book, Who Killed Civil Society? (available now).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everyone, this is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. Before we get started with today's |
| 0:05.0 | episode, I want to tell our listeners about a new book. It's just out from my colleague here at the Manhattan Institute, Howard Hussock. |
| 0:13.0 | It's called Who Killed Civil Society, The Rise of Big Government and Decline of Buzhua Norms. |
| 0:20.0 | It's an important book about the decline of key |
| 0:22.5 | institutions of civil society, institutions like the YMCA, the Boy and Girl Scouts, the Rotary |
| 0:29.6 | clubs, and why government-run programs designed to replace such private efforts have, in |
| 0:35.3 | Hughes-Ock's view, generally failed. |
| 0:38.3 | The role of civic groups in America and in American life has been a major focus at the Manhattan |
| 0:43.3 | Institute and at City Journal for years. In fact, on October 16th, we're hosting the annual |
| 0:49.3 | Civil Society Awards in New York City, where we'll honor four outstanding non-profit groups for their efforts |
| 0:55.9 | in helping to solve the country's most pressing challenges. If you're interested in that, |
| 1:01.2 | you can visit the Manhattan Institute website to learn more. But again, the book by Howard |
| 1:06.2 | Hussack is called Who Killed Civil Society? It's on sale today, and I hope you'll check it out. |
| 1:12.3 | We'll link to it in the show description, and you can find it on Amazon or wherever books are |
| 1:17.6 | sold. That's it for the announcement. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show. |
| 1:25.9 | Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. |
| 1:31.6 | Joining me on the show today from his home in Seattle is Christopher Rufo. Chris is a documentary filmmaker and a city journal contributing editor. |
| 1:41.5 | He's been writing a lot for us over the last year, and we're very |
| 1:44.3 | happy to have him back on the podcast. He had a couple of short pieces in our summer issue, |
| 1:50.6 | one of which was just adapted by the Wall Street Journal with the title, New Left Urbanists |
| 1:55.9 | Want to Remake Your City. We'll talk about that piece, which is on the new politics of cities, |
| 2:02.3 | homelessness, and more with Chris Rufo after the break. |
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