Review of Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities

Abstract

Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities by Andre M. Perry is about the unacknowledged value of Black people and spaces, a response to the “insulting and infantilizing research and commentary about how Black people cause their own poverty” (p. 8). Perry takes an asset-based approach that addresses the history of structural racism and systematic disinvestment in Black communities. Using memoir, news stories, literature review, and descriptive statistics, he provides an accessible account of the historic and contemporary devaluation of Black lives and neighborhoods, including overarching trends and case studies, to demonstrate racial disparities in economic development, home valuation, schools, health, political representation, and gentrification. The book is an obvious choice for courses in urban studies and racial inequality, but also (e)valuation and economics. Perry effectively highlights the value of Black communities while acknowledging the systematic disinvestment and structural racism that have devalued them....