John F.C. Turner

One-line: Architect and housing theorist known for the “housing as a verb” argument — that the poor are better served building their own housing than receiving top-down government projects.

What we know

• Contrasted “housing as a noun” (top-down government projects that build housing for the poor, sequestering them from opportunity) with “housing as a verb” (bottom-up efforts where poor residents build their own housing near sites of economic opportunity). (source: The New Urban Crisis)

Mentioned in

• The New Urban Crisis — Richard Florida’s book invokes Turner’s “housing as a noun” vs. “housing as a verb” distinction.

Connections

• Richard Florida — author of The New Urban Crisis, the source that surfaces Turner’s argument.
• City Building — Turner’s bottom-up “housing as a verb” thesis bears directly on how cities house their poor.
• Real Estate — his self-built-housing argument concerns where and how low-income residents acquire housing relative to economic opportunity.

Open questions

• Distinct from John G. Turner (a different person in the corpus) — do not merge.