Condo Conquest

Book excerpt: When condominiums first emerged in North American cities in the 1960s, they were a new kind of housing governed by boards of resident owners volunteering in a community. Condo Conquest shows how the condo and its inner governance have since become something else entirely, taken over – or conquered – by an assemblage of firms specializing in condo law, real estate, security, and property management, as well as growing numbers of non-resident investors who purchase condo units as commodities. Drawing on the accounts of residents and board directors in Toronto and New York and myriad other sources, Randy Lippert takes a close look at the inner workings of condoization. He shows how condo governance increasingly involves a complex set of legal, social, and spatial relationships among various elements assembled together, including commercial agents, forms of knowledge, and technologies. The first major study of condominium governance in North America, Condo Conquest questions assumptions about the condo and its governance. By illuminating the complex set of agents, processes, and forms of knowledge that have taken over the condo world, Lippert discerns a number of troubling trends that imperil the condo’s future and undermine the integrity of urban communities.