Bench Ansfield

It really doesn't make much sense to talk about right-wing media as distinct from legacy or mainstream media at this point.

This video of Chicagoans intervening to save a man from being abducted off the streets by ICE is making the rounds on Instagram.

Community action works.

Source: www.instagram.com/reel/DPZL2AL...

Born in Flames A <em>New York Times</em> Editors' Choice<br /><br />&#8220;[R]evelatory&hellip;Deeply researched and masterfully told.&#8221; &#8212;Brian Goldstone, <em>New York Times Book Review</em><br /><br />Th...

And here’s my recently published book detailing this history: wwnorton.com/books/978132...

The Disasters ‘High-Risk’ Insurance Fails to Paper Over | Essay From the Watts Riots to 2025 Wildfires, California’s FAIR Plan Has Stood in the Way of Transformative Change

Full piece here: www.zocalopublicsquare.org/disasters-hi...

Shortened SF Chronicle piece here: www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...

Screenshot of the SF Chronicle with the headline "How the Watts Uprising in LA led to the state's FAIR insurance plan"

After the Palisades & Eaton fires, insurers leaned on a program designed to respond to the '60s uprisings. The climate crisis is being hedged with the same faulty tools created for the urban crisis. I wrote about that inheritance for @zocalopublicsquare.bsky.social and @sfchronicle.com

The Disasters ‘High-Risk’ Insurance Fails to Paper Over | Essay From the Watts Riots to 2025 Wildfires, California’s FAIR Plan Has Stood in the Way of Transformative Change

By leaning on insurance-based solutions to deep-seated societal problems, California has put itself on a path toward repeating the mistakes of the past, warns Temple University historian @benchansfield.bsky.social. zps.la/4nuhIdv

Brilliant piece by @benchansfield.bsky.social
#urbanhistory #envhist #fires #insurance #inequality #Watts #LA

Thanks Charlotte!

From Tenements to Towers: Redlining, Resilience, and the Burning of the Bronx Join us for a conversation about challenges and mobilizations around housing in New York City.

Event details here: www.mcny.org/event/teneme...

And book info here: wwnorton.com/books/978132...

NYC launch of BORN IN FLAMES! Housing Justice for All and I will be in conversation at the Museum of the City of NY on Sat 10/18. Join HJ4A's Ritti Singh, the museum's curator of social activism Sarah Seidman, and me as we discuss the fight for housing justice from the 70s to the present.

There Is No Place for Us with Brian Goldstone and Eve L. Ewing - National Public Housing Museum A conversation with author Brian Goldstone, whose deeply reported new book plunges readers into the lives of families struggling to remain housed in a gentrifying, increasingly unequal city.

Two weeks from today! I couldn't be more excited to join @eveewing.bsky.social at the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago on Oct 14 to talk about There Is No Place for Us.

Free + open to all. RSVP here: nphm.org/event/there-...

Millions Could Lose Housing Aid Under Trump Plan Drafts of unpublished rules obtained by ProPublica detail plans that would open the door to full-time work requirements, two-year limits on living in federally supported housing and stripping aid from...

If the Trump administration has its way, nearly *four million* people—half of them children—will be at imminent risk of eviction and homelessness.

Let that sink in.

Indie director Barbara Marques has been kidnapped by ICE. She is legally married to a U.S. citizen & was at a green card mtg when she was abducted and prevented from seeing her lawyer. Her husband Tucker May does not know where she is. Please spread the word so he can find her /1

Tenants Seek to Unionize One Private Equity Firm's Entire Housing Portfolio By organizing renters across Capital Realty Group’s affordable housing complexes, the Tenant Union Federation hopes to bring sectoral bargaining to negotiations with large landlords.

This is kinda incredible that renters from multiple units in a realtor's portfolio are organizing for tenants' rights.

Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs As Terrorism “Indicators” New order targets “anti-Christian,” “anti-American,” and “anti-capitalism” opinions

🚨 New directive NSPM-7 targets "anti-capitalism," “anti-Christian,” and “anti-American" opinions as indicators of extremist violence, authorizing an army of 4,000 counter-terrorism officers to prevent crimes that haven't happened:
www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nsp...

U.S. map showing that in 25 states and D.C., federal agencies like ICE and the U.S. Marshals only detain people using local jails. In other states, jails play a part in the detention network alongside federal or private facilities. In Arizona, Delaware, and Hawaii no local jails provide substantial detention space to these agencies.

Thousands of people detained by ICE are actually held in local, publicly operated jails

These facilities–run by elected sheriffs–are making money off of the incarceration of people who are mostly accused of no more serious offense than crossing the border without permission

author's pitch: arson and the carceral history of property insurance "We need to expand our understanding of state revanchism to include not only investments in security, but also in securitization. The rise of finance complemented and shored up mass incarceration"

new: @benchansfield.bsky.social .bsky.social pitches their new book BORN IN FLAMES "The rise of finance complemented and shored up mass incarceration"
carceral-history.ghost.io/authors-pitc...

new on @carceralhistory.bsky.social: @benchansfield.bsky.social pitches their new book BORN IN FLAMES "The rise of finance complemented and shored up mass incarceration"
carceral-history.ghost.io/authors-pitc...

ICE has erected a gate to keep protesters out. They are blocking a public street, despite the Broadview Fire Department ordering ICE to tear it down.

Join us at 1930 Beach Street. 7-9 AM. Tell Broadview to tear this fence down.

Dems abandoning trans folks has now allowed for a million dollar ad buy for this disgusting ad by American Principles Project in NJ and VA casting trans people as school shooters and violent threats to children.

It was never about fucking sports.

That's the perfect pairing!! Thanks so much!

This was a very good book! As someone living in TX, I never heard about this while I was growing up. I learned so much ... and got so very angry. "Born in Flames" is a must read.

Thank you!

Who Burned the Bronx? Bench Ansfield’s Born in Flames argues that landlords—driven by financialization and the development of insurance “brownlining” in the 1960s and 1970s—are largely to blame.

Who Burned the Bronx?

Bench Ansfield’s Born in Flames argues that landlords—driven by financialization and the development of insurance “brownlining” in the 1960s and 1970s—are largely to blame.
newrepublic.com/article/2007...

When the Bronx Burned, Tenants Died and Landlords Got Rich

New book alert! "Born in Flames" by @benchansfield.bsky.social F'20, F'22 is reviewed in @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/b...

Congratulations, Bench!

Born in Flames &#8220;[R]evelatory&hellip;Deeply researched and masterfully told.&#8221; &#8212;Brian Goldstone, <em>New York Times Book Review</em><br /><br />The explosive account of the arson wave that hit the Br...

& find the book here: wwnorton.com/books/978132...

Who Burned the Bronx? Bench Ansfield’s Born in Flames argues that landlords—driven by financialization and the development of insurance “brownlining” in the 1960s and 1970s—are largely to blame.

It's really good y'all
Read the review here: newrepublic.com/article/2007...

Screenshot of Tracy Rosenthal's review in The New Republic of Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City.

How can the housing struggles of the 1970s guide the tenant movement in the present? @city.bsky.social breaks it down in this electrifying review of BORN IN FLAMES for @newrepublic.com

If you want to better understand why cities chose police funding over habitability, read this.

Join our September 25 online celebration of REBUILD, a free service that connects formerly incarcerated individuals to a therapist of color. We’ll hear from program participants and graduates, give updates about the first four years of REBUILD, and discuss ways to support and continue the program.

My fucking god