About the Author

Rachel Weber is associate professor in the Urban Planning and Policy Department and a faculty fellow in the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of Swords into Dow Shares: Governing the Decline of the Military Industrial Complex and coeditor of the Oxford Handbook for Urban Planning. She was a member of the Urban Policy Advisory Committee for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama and appointed to the Tax Increment Financing Reform Task Force by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Reviews

"From Boom to Bubble is a careful, convincing, and very readable account of how the real estate bubble that fueled the Great Recession happened, and Weber indicates, could well happen again. Weber builds a case for how all the stakeholders in the process - developers, mortgage brokers, real estate brokers, appraisers, building managers, real estate lawyers, permit expediters, mayors, and planners - face incentives to fuel a boom to such an extent that it becomes a bubble, with real estate investment continuing unabated even when demand no longer exists and vacancy rates are high."-- "Planning Perspectives"

"Weber gives us a compelling book that cements her reputation as one of the top urban planners in the field of urban political economy. Her sophisticated and nuanced understanding of complex systems like global finance and real estate markets is conveyed easily and accessibly to those both inside and outside of academia. From Boom to Bubble is a major contribution, one that will most certainly be widely read and discussed for years to come."-- "Joel Rast, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee"

"Weber offers an innovative and valuable approach, contributing important new insights and understanding to a multidisciplinary audience. From Boom to Bubble will be widely read as it contributes to the long standing and enduring scholarly focus on Chicago as the paradigmatic city and as a timely explication of financialization, the defining moment of the twenty-first century. Weber has an extraordinary depth of knowledge and she writes in an engaging and readable style that explains complex material in an accessible and understandable manner. This book solidifies Weber's position as one of the leading scholars of the urban built environment."-- "Robert W. Lake, Rutgers University"

"Weber's From Boom to Bubble will appeal to planners, geographers, sociologists, political scientists, and historians who appreciate a critical perspective on global real estate and capital flows and those who study global financial crises. This is outstanding scholarship, and offers deep insights into the dynamic real estate markets of this Millennial era."-- "Journal of the American Planning Association"

"Weber's recent book offers a landmark contribution to the scholarship of urban studies. Written in a sharp and vivid style, and drawing from an intimate knowledge of Chicago, From Boom to Bubble constitutes an impressive work. Combining empirically-rich material with theoretically-informed research, Weber achieves the feat of bringing a strikingly new perspective to the much-debated question of why urban development is prone to overbuilding."-- "Planning Theory and Practice"