Ben Austen is a writer from Chicago. He is the co-host of the podcast Some of My Best Friends Are and the author of High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing. High-Risers was long-listed for the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Nonfiction, shortlisted for the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice, and named one of the best books of 2018 by Booklist, Mother Jones and the public libraries of Chicago and St. Louis.
A former editor at Harper’s Magazine, he is a story consultant on the podcast The City and a senior fellow at the Invisible Institute. His feature writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, The Best American Travel Writing, and many other publications. He is currently at work on a narrative nonfiction book about the parole system and the county’s practices around crime and punishment.
