Since the 1980s a great deal has been written about the relationship between art, architecture, and design, on the one hand, and the city or social space on the other. In Evictions Rosalyn Deutsche investigates the dominant uses of this interdisciplinary discourse, exploring topics that range from public art and homelessness to the repression of feminism in critical theories of public space.

The book also intervenes in debates taking place in art, architecture, and urban studies about the meaning of public space, and places these struggles within broader contests over the definition of democracy. Opposing the nostalgic belief that democracy's survival demands a return to the ideal of a unitary public sphere, Deutsche contends that plurality and conflict, far from undermining public space, are the conditions of its possibility and extension.