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In cities across the world, gentrification and the housing crisis are facts of life. But how did we get to this point? And is there any way we can fight back?
A good place to begin answering these questions is Manchester, England. Over the last thirty years, corporate developers, rentier capitalists and boosterist politicians have reshaped Manchester in their image, replacing its working-class communities, public spaces and affordable housing with skyscrapers, luxury developments and a private rental market that creates wealth for rentiers and impoverishes everybody else.
The Rentier City traces this story, showing how it fits within the longer history of Manchester. In doing so unveils a larger story of the relationship between capital and our cities, between rentier and rentee, and gives us a blueprint of how fight back against rentier capitalism and take back control of the cities we live in.
“A detailed, eye-opening investigation and analysis of the state of Manchester’s housing, economy, and everyday experience, with a refreshing focus on the grassroots, providing a welcome dose of reality to relentless Manchester boosterism.”
“Those who fight against a system are the ones who get to really understand how it works. Isaac Rose is a leading activist against the rentier version of Manchester. His book is more than just a history of one city, it’s a forensic dissection of the whole rentier city system and how it came to be.”
“This is a gripping, un-put-down-able story of the UK’s most shocking city. Stripping bare the relationship between capital, property and the organisation of space, it never loses its focus on the power of resistance as well as the pain of defeat.”
“The Rentier City takes an unflinching look at the city Manchester has become; assessing and analysing the costs of gentrification, the power of the developer lobby and the weaknesses of the urban left. This is a landmark study of the social and political processes that have made turned Britain into a country ruled by and for landlords.”
“Isaac Rose, like Engels before him, takes us behind the shiny façade of the creative city to reveal the mechanisms of capital accumulation and population displacement that drive the city. The Rentier City gives the lie to the heroic Manchester story and helps us talk about reclaiming the city for the common good.”
“Written by an author grounded in the struggles of his adopted city, The Rentier City is much more than a cautionary tale about “Manc-hatten”; it is a dystopian window into the global urban age in construction and a call to arms to rebel before it’s too late.”
“In this remarkable analysis of 300 years of urbanization in Manchester, Isaac Rose articulates how capitalism is always switching gears to siphon value from the city at the expense of working class lives. An important and hopeful book, written in the spirit of resistance against the wreckage of rentier extraction, and an indispensable contribution to our understanding of neoliberal urbanism.”
“In this sharp, impassioned study, Isaac Rose shines a light on the endlessly nuanced, utterly venal yet irrepressibly soulful northern metropolis that is modern-day Manchester. Exploring the central role of housing in the city’s recent history, Rose presents his home city as a paradigm of big-business greed and disregard for basic living standards in a context where money is king and public assets are invariably auctioned off to the highest bidder. A contemporary update of Engels’s The Condition of the Working Class in England for a society where exploitation is often hidden but capitalist skullduggery still impoverishes and disempowers ordinary citizens in countless nefarious ways, this is an essential, searing and vital piece of writing.”
“Since I studied in Manchester in 1986-90, the city’s property infrastructure has been decimated by private developers working in tandem with city enablers. Sites of social communing and public housing have been transformed into high-cost, low-taste developments, including the Haçienda. Has any other city ever lost so much of its soul in such a short space of time? In The Rentier City, Isaac Rose, whose commitment to housing activism and community politics runs deep, has provided us with a searing account of this history.”
“As a born and bred Mancunian I’ve been waiting for a book like this for some time! A wonderful, rich, yet accessible, account of the rise, fall and neoliberal resurrection of rentierism in Manchester over the longue durée. A must read for anyone interested in the past, and concerned about the present and future of this paradigmatic city.”
“Finally, here’s the antidote to the decades of Mad Fer It Urban Boosterism that have beset Greater Manchester. The Rentier City is a cool-headed but compassionate account of how Manchester’s traditions of ruthless capitalism and contempt for the urban working class got revived and rebranded – after a brief municipal socialist interlude – demonstrating how local government, property developers and the culture industry have worked together to create a landlord’s paradise. Importantly, Rose also brings out the equally long tradition of resistance to Manchester (neo)liberalism, and its endurance to the present day. This book deserves a place in the pockets of all those in the northern metropolis who refuse to participate in the self-congratulatory rituals of Manctopia.”
“A remarkable achievement…. The Rentier City is destined to become the definitive account of how and why Manchester has neoliberalised, while also suggesting how a different city trajectory can be realised.”
“Rose’s compelling evocation of Manchester as a symptomatic ‘rentier city’ will provide a crucial reference point for all those seeking a less exploitative and socially polarised urban future.”
