A Fresh Look at Public Housing
“Public housing” is a charged phrase for many. Images of failed “projects” come to mind. For those who lived in such a project, residency came with a social stigma attached, that never failed.
In my law class at St Louis University (Housing & Community Development) we’ve been looking closely at contractual arrangements between the feds and local housing authorities, a plethora of enabling legislation dating back to the 1937 Housing Act, Hud regulations and court cases arising over issues related to public housing. Despite the nitty gritty of the reading I’ve gained a fresh perspective on a complex topic.
The first is to remember that despite some major issues, public housing has and continues to provide quality housing to millions. Congress has addressed issues over the decades by altering how we provide and administer public housing. Originally the idea was simple. The federal government would pay the principal & interest on bonds sold by local housing authorities to construct new units of housing. At the time it served as a “slum clearance” effort and a get out of the depression job creation program. Original tenants were intended to be working families that needed some temporary help with a decent place to live. For a variety of reasons this changed into concentrations of very low income persons – mostly minority.
Growing up in a fairly new part of Oklahoma City in the 70s I was never exposed to high rise housing projects. We had a few low-rise projects but in my sheltered suburban childhood I wasn’t exposed to those either. Upon entering Architecture school in the 80s we certainly looked at one of the most famous failed projects – St Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe. In Architecture school the focus was largely on the design of the buildings – mostly the skip-stop elevators that stopped every third floor. An entire neighborhood, mostly Polish, was wiped away for the (33) 11-story buildings but we never learned about what was there before (prior post on the neighborhood). Looking at the photos you had no visual clue what had come before.
Moving to St Louis in 1990 gave me a chance to walk the old Pruitt-Igoe site. The buildings were imploded over the course of several years in the early to mid 70s. The size of the site was amazing to me – this was prior to the Gateway School being constructed on part of the site off Jefferson. I had seen photos numerous times but they don’t communicate the way video does.
A quote from Wikipedia: “In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means ‘life of moral corruption and turmoil, life out of balance’.” Koyaanisqatsi was a film that effectively used imagery from Pruitt-Igoe to communicate this ‘life out of balance’ idea. This clip is 3 minutes:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHKhk4oZMro[/youtube]
Pruitt-Igoe had 2,870 units on 57 acres – a density of 50 units to the acre, high by suburban standards but about right for an urban neighborhood. But the numbers don’t tell the true story – not all 50 unit per acre neighborhoods are created equal. Despite receiving architectural awards, Pruitt-Igoe was destined to fail. It was the warehousing of thousands. 57 acres of nothing resembling a neighborhood.
Monday we begin looking at the solution, HOPE VI. This program has enabled housing authorities to raze old high rise projects and replace them with low-rise units in more friendly arrangements with mixed income occupants to avoid concentrations of poverty. These new developments, if managed well, have a much greater success rate. Residents have mixed incomes, many are market rate. Those that are subsidized are not labeled as such so the stigma is not there. Most of the HOPE VI developments we’ve seen here still don’t have the density or nearby retail of the old “slum” neighborhoods that were cleared decades ago which is unfortunate. Pruitt-Igoe helped give good urban density a bad rap. The replacement developments also lack commercial centers providing retail options within walking distance and more importantly providing at least a small amount of jobs within the neighborhood.
As part of a class assignment I’m going to look at several HOPE VI developments in St Louis to see what replaced what and to look for opportunities to incorporate walkable retail within and adjacent to them. For now I’m just thrilled at the knowledge I’m getting through the Urban Planning & Real Estate Development program at SLU.
“Despite receiving architectural awards…†From who, the East-German Architectural Society? One of my co-workers grew up in Pruitt-Igoe on the 4th floor (the skip elevator stopped at the 5th floor). They made the best out of the situation but she was extremely happy when the family moved into a home.
I enjoy running through Darst-Webbe and looking at the neighborhood. And with the City Hospital gaining momentum, it’s turning into a nice area. Although I’m not quite sure what the Truman Parkway adds.
Yesterday I saw a homemade sign on a public street that said: “Please don’t park here for the next 20 minutes as my grandma just had surgery and is getting dropped off.†Well I saw the person who wrote the sign and said: “Hey, you obviously don’t read Urban Review, this spot could be making money with a meter.†And I ripped that bad boy up! Just kiddin’…hey it’s Friday.
Growing up in St Louis I was never really interested in the history of the city. Strangely, since moving back I cannot get enought of it. I learned about Pruitt-Igoe a few months ago and I am still amazed by it. I never associated something like that with St Louis. The shear size of the project is astounding along with the story of its rapid failure.
HOPEIV is still located in “the hood,” not in affluent or even middle class suburban or urban areas. How do residents of these areas automatically have a greater socioeconomic chance simply with New Urbanism? Blumeyer or “Renassiance on Grand” was not relocated to an area with greater economic opportunity. Rather it’s really at the same site of the old Blumeyer Projects.
Steve is right and Doug, go visit the development on the old Blumeyer site (just east of Grand off of MLK).
.
It’s a spectacular improvement. Way better than Pyramid’s work on the south side HOPE VI. Lives are improved with HOPE VI.
Doug is right, there is no specific reason why a resident of a HOPE VI site–generally in the same place as the “failed” public housing tower”–would have any better chance of economic success. EXCEPT that the physical rebuilding is only one of the two pillars of the HOPE VI process. The process also calls for an extensive set of social services that are provided to residents as the new units are constructed and opened.
Of course, the unanswered question is how many existing residents of the demolished units return to the new community. Research on this suggests that many do not–both as a conscience choice on the part of the resident as well as because they fail readmission criteria. Additionally, some HOPE VI studies suggest that residents who don’t return end up moving to neighborhoods just as poor, crime-infested and lacking economic opportunities as the pre-HOPE VI areas.
In terms of the new communities having a much greater success rate, location of new urbanistic commercial infill is only one criteria and, over all, the question remains unanswered.
Talk to some of the old timers who were around when those projects were put up. One, they didn’t appreciate their neighborhoods being condemned, two, in the early days they were strictly managed with frequent inspections, requests necessary to hand pictures etc. (sound like HOPE 6 currently).
It is my understanding they were segregated. The original concept was not for long term residency but transitional. I presume what occurs is those who can get out do and the worst remain until only the worst occupy the bldgs.
Pictures of the areas prior demolition look an awful lot like the neighborhoods were are trying to save or recreate today.
One would think the govt would learn its lesson and get out of the neighborhood creation business. They don’t have a very good track record. (Sort of like nation building).
At Beyond Housing we would integrate residents with the community, you would not know who was subsidized. This solved some problems, especially integration with the community, but the over riding problem of handling a household always depended upon the family itself, and there is much variation in success, not unlike the variation in the overall community. But at least the family is not singled out as a failure from the start.
Overall success requires many inputs, but in addition to avoiding an architecture that is nothing more than warehousing of families the concern should be jobs. Jobs that are being sent overseas, thestepping stone jobs that many immigrants to America have used to help their families out of poverty. And screw the global advocates here, these jobs will return to America when the major capitalists are finished exploiting cheap labor and/or energy costs rise through the roof. Sending jobs overseas is not natural, nor is there any such thing as a service economy, except in the minds of the major capitalists who benefit from such an arrangement.
Housing, while very important, is only a partial answer to improving lives. Hope 6 is an improvement in philosophy, but it is the usual bankrupt policy that does little to address underlying problems that brings us to today.
It will appear successful in government statistics however, due to the ability of burying the family among other families.
Social Services are great, Beyond Housing supplied those services also, but in the end it is jobs that will make the difference.
Having been involved in affordable housing for many years, I can only say that while officials pat themselves on the back and give themselves awards, the system is far from working correctly.
The problem with integrating into the community is the profound lack of jobs. No jobs equals high crime and high poverty and high drug abuse. Low rise or high rise, without these key elements, success is fleeting.
There are plenty of low rise projects around. There is one in East St. Louis, just down the street from the casino, yet even after an extensive remodel (which lasted about 5 years before returning to its previous condition) failed. Of course, the boarded up apartments across the street didn’t help inspire hope either.
I’ve always liked that movie (Koyaanisqatsi), and never realized that was Pruitt-Igoe…it looked a lot like what I saw in East Germany. And I never realized P-I was so many buildings. I’ve seen the site on Google maps, but it’s hard to tell the scale of it from that.
.
Looks like living there would just suck the life right out of you.
You might want to check out the Polish Festival (and some of its old timers) today, at 20th & St. Louis Avenue.
at their best social service agencies combine the individual aspirations of those needed services with a collective desire of the many to bring about systematic reform. at their worst, social service agencies are covers for a failing system that promises much and delivers a lot. ironically, most of the hope vi projects in st. Louis came after a period of public housing agitation by public housing leaders–the gilkeys, fosters and carrs–but in most cases the projects have failed to build upon their activism and energy.
Generally, however, the fact that HOPE VI mandates services as part of the project–as temporary as they might be–is an indication, contrary the functional approach to community building, that the design of housing units is only one piece of the puzzle. in fact it may be the least important part.
the ball is still out for HOPE VI services, but given that St. Louis has been a leader in HOPE VI there is a track record to look.
Webby, me neither. Now I will have to rewatch that movie. By the way it is available on Netflix as a watch it now on your computer or to the Roku box if you have one.
Put all the support services you want. The fact remains that structural unemployment hinders a lot of progress. Combined with a failed school system and police who are not there or do not care, the system is still set against many. If we wanted better chances then perhaps relocate a HOPEIV project on a transit line, perhaps near Express Scripts and UMSL. Partner with local government, school districts, the University, and finally Express Scripts. But then again Express Scripts, for example, implemented defensible space planning — they don’t want any “Negros from the City” otherwise they would have made it transit accessible. Project Housing, as long as it’s in downtrodden areas, will still remain isolated from the job market compared to middle class areas. Suburbs will fight, as they do, to prevent the underclasses from crossing their gates. They tried in Black Jack in the 1970s, they successfully bulldozed Kinloch, they annexed Meacham Park, and finally we have Paul McKee. Until the suburban-urban divide is conquered, and we have more equitable socioeconomic patterns across this entire region, HOPEIV will fall short of its goals. There are simply too many regional and global forces fighting in the other direction.
A nation so often poised to make great progressive strides maddeningly finds itself unwilling to face real issues and instead is content to be distracted by pure crap. I’m not sure this country has in it the ability to effect the sort of exemplary action that is worth following, despite its wealth and military strength. When I was a kid, I had such unconditional love for this country not knowing what the world was about. The conditions came with age, and I’m not so fond of where we are these days. No programming will work as truly intended without the tolerance needed by those not likely to ever actually need help staying afloat. But, of course, we’ll keep spending billions of dollars per month keeping this country ‘safe’.