Zelda Bronstein - Dissent Magazine

When Affordable Housing Meets Free-Market Fantasy

Zelda Bronstein ▪ November 27, 2017

Policy wonks left and right have sought to blame the U.S. housing crisis on local zoning regulations. But the evidence tells a different story.

The Limits of the “Left Coast Formula”: A Response to James N. Gregory

Zelda Bronstein ▪ March 24, 2015

As a lifetime resident of coastal California whose community activism dates back to Peoples Park (Berkeley, 1969), I turned with interest to James N. Gregory’s “Seattle’s Left Coast Formula” (Dissent, Winter 2015)—and came away mystified. According to Gregory, “Seattle shares …

Bill McKibben’s Difficult Political Education

Zelda Bronstein ▪ February 11, 2014

Bill McKibben’s recent writing leaves an impression of the author as a highly effective leader among leaders in the U.S. climate movement. The portrait seems credible. Why, then, is McKibben at pains to repudiate it?

Progressive Incoherence in “Radical” Berkeley

Zelda Bronstein ▪ August 1, 2013

Berkeley politics flesh out uncertainties if not downright disagreements on the left over “growth,” environmentalism, U.S. manufacturing, homelessness, and public employee compensation. To grasp the political realities of today’s Berkeley is not only to dispel an antiquated myth about an iconic place; it’s also to begin to grapple with major incoherence in progressivism at large.

Cooperation and Cunning

Zelda Bronstein ▪ Summer 2012

Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation by Richard Sennett Yale University Press, 2012, 336 pp. Richard Sennett’s new book was already in press when the Occupy movement took to the streets last fall. But its title alone suggests …

The Problem with Smart Growth: A Response to Benjamin Ross

Zelda Bronstein ▪ February 15, 2012

Zelda Bronstein: The Problem with Smart Growth – A Response to Benjamin Ross

Politics’ Fatal Therapeutic Turn

Zelda Bronstein ▪ Summer 2011

This is a moment in American life that cries out for far-flung activism on behalf of a bold democratic agenda. Instead, the partisans of democracy are largely demobilized and defensive. Why? Progressives are apt to blame cynicism spawned by Barack …

Zelda Bronstein Replies

Zelda Bronstein ▪ Summer 2011

Rather than engage my argument, Marshall Ganz dismisses it out of hand. He says that I misunderstand his work, but he never says how. Instead, he expounds on his theory of “public narrative” and its ability to move people by …

Industry and the Smart City

Zelda Bronstein ▪ Fall 1984

These days, U.S. city planning exudes an audacious air. The suburban sprawl that has dominated U.S. development since the Second World War is under assault from a multitude of policy makers and activists bent on protecting the environment and revitalizing …