Why Do The Country's Bluest Cities Price Out The Middle Class?

Boston, San Francisco, New York. These are some of the most progressive and reliably Democratic cities in the country.

Yet they're also the places that are increasingly pricing out their minority, immigrant, young, low-income and middle-class residents.

Big developers and speculators are often painted as the villains in the battle over who gets to live in urban America.

But author and housing activist Randy Shaw has a different suspect.

He says it's older homeowners and organized neighborhood associations who are restricting necessary development and pricing out everybody else.

Randy Shaw will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 21, at Porter Square Books.

Randy Shaw, director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic in San Francisco and author of "Generation Priced Out: Who Gets To Live In The New Urban America." He tweets @beyondchron.

Greg Vasil, president of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, which tweets @gbreb.

Nancy Ryan, president of the Cambridge Residents Alliance, which tweets @CambResAll.