Condo Conquest

Download or read book Condo Conquest written by Randy K. Lippert and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When condominiums first emerged in North American cities in the 1960s, they were a new kind of housing governed by boards of resident owners volunteering in a community. Condo Conquest shows how the condo and its inner governance have since become something else entirely, taken over – or conquered – by an assemblage of commercial interests specializing in condo law, real estate, security, and property management, as well as growing numbers of non-resident investors. Drawing on the accounts of residents and board directors in Toronto and New York and myriad other sources, Randy Lippert reveals how a growing reliance on commodified technologies, emergent forms of knowledge, and the exploitation of renters are threatening the condo’s future and undermining the integrity of urban communities.