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Xu, W. Is “Regulation from Below” Possible? Public Books.

2022

How do the people exercise power? For West Side Chicago residents in the 1960s who were part of Organization for a Better Austin (OBA), the exercise of power needed to be opportunistic and confrontational. To pressure banks to reinvest in their community, they took action: they scattered hundreds of pennies in the lobby of a bank lender, so as to disrupt business,1 and they surrounded a blockbusting real estate agent in the basement of a house until the agent promised to take his business out of the neighborhood.

Xu, W. Is “Regulation from Below” Possible? Public Books.

Urban Data Research Lab

Department of City & Regional Planning
Cornell University

921 University Ave

Ithaca, NY 14853

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