Disruptive Engagement: An Organizer’s Guide to Building Community Power for Justice in Land Use and Housing in New York City
Disruptive Engagement: An Organizer’s Guide to Building Community Power for Justice in Land Use and Housing in New York City
Disruptive Engagement: An Organizer’s Guide to Building Community Power for Justice in Land Use and Housing in New York City is a guide by organizers for organizers.
Land and housing are foundational to our ability to live and thrive. When we attempt to shape what gets built and sustained in New York City neighborhoods, we face a confusing system that instructs individuals to attend hearings, submit written comments, and testify in front of neighbors and officials. Disruptive Engagement is a handbook that draws on the knowledge of organizers from across New York City about how to disrupt the official community engagement apparatus in the most productive ways possible towards the goal of building justice in land use and housing.
With specific examples from New York City neighborhoods, this guide provides practical advice for how to maneuver official public hearings, build deliberate alliances, pursue legal challenges, upset the land-use review procedure, launch effective petition drives, and resist business as usual. We explore the challenge of trying to win gains within the existing system while at the same time working towards radical rupture with dominant logics. (The Center for the Humanities)