New York City is unique amongst American municipalities for its long history of experimenting with limited-equity co-operatives, where the profit co-op shareholders are able to make when selling their units is sharply limited. Over the city’s history, these co-ops have come in several forms, ranging from union-built projects like the Amalgamated Dwellings in the Bronx and the Lower East Side, Mitchell-Lama cooperatives, and Housing Development Fund Corporation (HDFC) Co-ops. In this panel, authors and historians will draw lessons from the successes (and failures) of limited-equity co-op housing in NYC, and help identify how these lessons can be used to shape future social housing programs.

• Nicholas Dagen Bloom (moderator) is the director of the Masters of Urban Planning Program at CUNY Hunter College. His research focuses on cities and their essential urban systems, including subsidized and public housing. He is the author and co-editor of several books about New York City’s housing landscape, including Public Housing That Worked, Public Housing Myths, and Affordable Housing in New York.
• Ben Holtzman is an assistant Professor of History at Lehman College who studies the intersection of political and social history in the United States, particularly as it applies to cities. His first book, The Long Crisis: New York City and the Path to Neoliberalism, describes how New York City transformed from a city with robust social welfare programs to a neoliberal city in the late 20th century.
• Annemarie Sammartino is a historian at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. Her research focuses on modern European history, urban history, and the history of migration. She is the author of Freedomland: Co-op City and the Story of New York, which explores the history of New York City through the lens of its largest limited-equity cooperative.
• Jonathan Tarleton is an urban planner and writer who works on issues related to housing, social infrastructure, and economic development. His first full-length book, Homes for Living: The Fight for Social Housing and the New American Commons, details the challenges two social housing co-ops faced as they decided whether to privatize or remain limited equity.
• Jennifer Baum is a filmmaker and writer who teaches composition at Montclair State University. Her memoir, Just City, explores the landscape of New York City’s subsidized housing programs, especially the Mitchell-Lama program, in her Upper West Side