Questioning how design can improve daily lives, more than thirty essays by practicing architects and designers, urban and community planners, historians, landscape architects and environmental designers illuminate an emerging geography of architectural activism and suggest the many ways that design can address issues of social justice.

Will and Sandy are two architects working on a major urban renewal project in the King's Cross section of London. The area is unsafe and not ready for such a project and is best known as a place to pick up prostitutes or buy drugs. Will and Sandy move their offices into a nearby vacant warehouse. Will and his girlfriend Liv have to deal with her behaviorally challenged thirteen year old daughter. At the same time Will has to deal with constant burglaries...