writing

Cover of the English edition of Gentrification is Inevitable and other lies. Cover image is a vertically-oriented picture of a city skyline with a hazy light blue sky.
Fortune Magazine, Top New Books to Read September 2022

“Leslie Kern is a wonderful writer, and this compelling, important, and highly original intervention in the gentrification debates is a staggering tour de force. At once a devastating critique of the limitations of established perspectives on gentrification and a convincing plea for an intersectional approach, this book offers sparklingly clear analysis and numerous possibilities for political action. Anyone who reads it will never forget it.” Tom Slater, author of Shaking Up the City

“If you’ve ever really wanted to understand what gentrification means, this is the book for you. Kern gets beyond jargon, digs into scores of city stories that show how cities have transformed, and offers trajectories for positive change.” Shawn Micallef, author of Frontier City

featured media

Yes! Magazine: 9 Myths About Gentrification: It’s time to stop believing the lie that gentrification is inevitable.

Publishers Weekly: Kern lucidly explains modern feminist and urban theories and brings fresh insights and a measure of hope to a vexing social issue. Progressives will take heart.

The Guardian: It’s not all coffee shops and hipsters: what we get wrong about gentrification. (Opinion)

excerpts

LitHub: Neither Natural Nor Inevitable: How Language Masks Gentrification

Fast Company: Stop Blaming Coffee Shops and Cool Boutiques for Gentrification

Azure Magazine: This Ain’t Your Parents’ Gentrification

translations

Cover of the Ediciones Godot translation titled La gentrificaion es inevitable y otras mentiras. The cover has a blue background with a graphic of tall buildings.
Cover of the Bellaterra translation titled Gentrificacion es inevitable y otras mentiras. Background is pink with a graphic image of a cupcake with white frosting and the shadow of a devil behind it.

feminist city

Cover of the US/Uk paper back edition of Feminist City. Cover text reads: The feminist city is an ongoing experiment in living differently, living better, and living more justly in an urban world.
Planetizen Top Urban Planning Books, 2020; New Brunswick Book Awards Finalist, 2020

“Cities aren’t built to accommodate female bodies, female needs, female desires. In this rich, engaging book the feminist geographer Leslie Kern envisions how we might transform the ‘city of men’ into a city for everyone. Let’s all move there immediately.” Lauren Elkin, author of Flaneuse

Feminist City is brilliant because of the ways it lays out, quite clearly, the fact that cities are designed to discriminate in both overt and hidden ways and that it’s possible to imagine something new—something that is more inclusive of different bodies and experiences.” Evette Dionne, former editor in chief of Bitch

featured media

Hazlitt: ‘The Promises of Pleasure, Freedom, Excitement, Opportunity, and Encounter’: An Interview with Leslie Kern

Bitch: Woman-Made World: Inside the Inevitable Rise of the Feminist City

Public Books: What Would a Feminist City Look Like? Talking with Leslie Kern

excerpts

Vox Highlight: Is it Time to Build Feminist Cities?

CityLab: How to Rebuild Cities for Caregiving

Refinery29: As Women, The Cities We Live In Aren’t Built For Us

translations

Cover of the Ediciones Godot translation titled Ciudad Feminista. Cover is mustard yellow with a city map graphic.
Cover of the German edition of Feminist City.
Cover of the Treccani translation titled La Citta Feminista.

essays and op-eds

How the 9-5 city failed women. Early Magazine, October 8, 2021

Safety and the city: Why women have never relied on the police for protection. Literary Hub, September 27, 2021

Care is the foundation. In Reclaiming the Right to the City, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, September 15, 2021

Upward-thrusting buildings ejaculating into the sky’ – do cities have to be so sexist? The Guardian, July 6, 2020

Cities aren’t designed for women. Sarah Everard’s murder shows us the consequences. Vox, March 17, 2021

Care-full planning. Plan Canada, Spring 2021

Building feminist cities. Women Across Frontiers, July 2021

How our cities fail women. Reuters, July 13, 2020

Care work in the time of COVID-19. Verso, May 19, 2020

Love in the feminist city. Verso, February 12, 2020

academic writing

Cover of Sex and the Revitalized City
UBC Press 2010

“This original study of the gendering processes occurring in the neoliberal city is a significant addition to scholarly debate on cities and gender. Empirically grounded in the intricacies of the condo market in Toronto, it both adds to, and updates, the pathbreaking work around gendered critical urban analysis. An accessible and incisive text that will no doubt instigate future discussions.” Loretta Lees, Cities Group, Department of Geography, King’s College, London

For a complete list of peer-reviewed scholarship, please visit Google Scholar.

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