The Big Picture: America’s Real Estate Developer in Chief

USA: #Trump’s policies will only worsen metropolitan #inequality. They will make the lives of the poor even more insecure, while also enriching the financiers, developers, and landlords. @TomSugrue @publicbooks #TheBigPicture

Public Books: “… The aftermath of the 2008 housing crisis provided yet more opportunities for profit and plunder at the expense of low-income Americans, especially racial minorities, desperate for good housing. The president’s aide-de-camp and son-in-law Jared Kushner led the ranks of real estate investors who swept into communities ravaged by foreclosures, gobbling up apartments and modest homes at bargain prices. After minimal repairs and cosmetic renovations, they reap substantial profits by charging high rents, issuing exorbitant penalties for late payments or technical violations of lease terms, and slapping tenants with lawsuits and steep legal fees if they cannot pay up. Between 2011 and 2014, Kushner’s firm acquired nearly 20,000 units in multifamily buildings, mostly “distress-ridden, Class B” apartment complexes in declining suburbs in Ohio, New Jersey, and Maryland, with some five thousand in metro Baltimore alone.

Trump presides over a deeply unequal metropolitan landscape that has provided him, his advisers, and other bankers and real estate developers untold wealth in the last 40 years. Those practices have also played a key role in widening the gaps between rich and poor across American metropolitan areas. … .”

The Big Picture: America’s Real Estate Developer in Chief