Review: Renovate: Changing Who You Are by Loving Where You Are

Renovate: Changing Who You Are by Loving Where You Are by Léonce B. Crump Jr.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Just last night I was discussing about the increasingly expensive price of homes in Singapore and how I desired to buy 2 room flats (the second smallest type of public housing available) but they were only reserved for those about aged 55. My friend was cautioning me about whether my wife would feel safe coming home (given the demographics of the neighbours) and if I would be at ease letting her return alone.

Using the case study of his own city of Atlanta, he proposes that we should find out the history of our cities. Like Greenfield (in Subversive Jesus), Crump Jr. intentionally uprooted his family to live in an area that was unsafe for his family, and how they persevered in spite of seemingly bleak situations. He candidly shares about his mother's accounts of racial discrimination, and his struggles with encountering such treatment today.

Growing up as the majority race in Singapore, where the entire city-state underwent concurrent third-to-first world development, Crump Jr. helped me gentrification in a whole new light, not just as a theory from my human geography syllabus, but the real-life impact to the people undergoing it. While I especially appreciate the efforts to ground the book in Scripture, I was not persuaded that the author is truly zealous about the cause he is writing about. At least it did seem to be conveyed through the pages of the book; I did not sense that the primary was one of his consuming passions. Hence I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

I received this book from the Crown Publishing Group's Blogging for Books program for the purposes of providing an unbiased review. All views are my own.

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