{"id":1335,"date":"2017-03-01T08:00:37","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T14:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=1335"},"modified":"2017-02-27T18:24:51","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T00:24:51","slug":"the-problems-with-public-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2017\/03\/01\/the-problems-with-public-housing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Problems with Public Housing"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1340\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1340\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/77110866@N05\/19218248038\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1340\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2017\/02\/19218248038_f00d4fde45_z-600x600.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2017\/02\/19218248038_f00d4fde45_z-600x600.jpg 600w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2017\/02\/19218248038_f00d4fde45_z-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2017\/02\/19218248038_f00d4fde45_z-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2017\/02\/19218248038_f00d4fde45_z.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1340\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Kobe, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Public housing has a long and troubled history in the United States. In recent years, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.citylab.com\/housing\/2016\/03\/what-demolitions-of-chicagos-projects-in-1990-reveal-about-housing-vouchers\/475809\/\">demolishing of public housing in cities like Chicago<\/a> has been one of the most prominent images of decline. For sociologists, it is important to understand not just the problems with and eventual failures of post-war public housing, but also the social forces and sentiments behind their creation.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Consider why the federal government would even see a role for itself in the building of public housing structures in the first place. The origin of public housing legislation can be traced back to Franklin Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal, a series of laws and executive orders focused on providing more basic necessities for the poorest in America.<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hhh.umn.edu\/directory\/ed-goetz\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Edward Goetz<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 2013. <\/span><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cornellpress.cornell.edu\/book\/?GCOI=80140100864770\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice, and Public Housing Policy<\/span><\/a><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Cornell University Press.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>John F. Bauman, Roger Biles, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stjohns.edu\/academics\/bio\/kristin-m-szylvian\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kristin M. Szylvian<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 2000. <\/span><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.psupress.org\/books\/titles\/0-271-02012-1.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From Tenements to the Taylor Homes: In Search of an Urban Housing Policy in Twentieth-Century America<\/span><\/a><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Penn State Press.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nyit.edu\/bio\/nbloom\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nicholas Dagen Bloom<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 2009. <\/span><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.upenn.edu\/pennpress\/book\/14435.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Public Housing That Worked: New York in the Twentieth Century<\/span><\/a><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. University of Pennsylvania Press.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uni.edu\/vpaa\/documents\/Haysvita.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Richard Allen Hays<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 1995. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sunypress.edu\/p-2045-the-federal-government-and-urba.aspx\">The Federal Government and Urban Housing<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SUNY Press.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, public housing would eventually become associated with racial segregation. The design of public housing projects ultimately worked to\u00a0concentrate poor non-white communities into relatively cut-off neighborhoods in the middle of cities. This segregation, combined with heavy degradation of the buildings and a lack of proper care from government officials, led to a heavily stigmatized view of public housing buildings. <\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/sociology.princeton.edu\/faculty\/doug-massey\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Douglas Massey<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.swenergy.org\/staff\/adam-bickford\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Adam Bickford<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 1991. \u201c<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/sf.oxfordjournals.org\/content\/69\/4\/1011.short\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Segregation in the Second Ghetto: Racial and Ethnic Segregation in American Public Housing, 1977<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Social Forces<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 69(4): 1011-1036.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/sociology.princeton.edu\/faculty\/doug-massey\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Douglas Massey<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.albany.edu\/sociology\/Nancy-Denton.php\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nancy Denton<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 1993. <\/span><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hup.harvard.edu\/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018211\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass<\/span><\/a><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Harvard University Press.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/geography.uga.edu\/directory\/profile\/holloway-steven-r\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Steven R. Holloway<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Deborah Bryan, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/fisher.osu.edu\/people\/chabot.2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Robert Chabot<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Donna M. Rogers, and James Rulli. 1998. \u201c<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/uar.sagepub.com\/content\/33\/6\/767.short\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Exploring the Effects of Public Housing on the Concentration of Poverty in Columbus, Ohio<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Urban Affairs Review<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 33(6): 767-789.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Given the sheer intensity of racial segregation and concentrated poverty in public housing, many housing advocates and public officials have declared these programs a failure, leading to the demolition of old public housing facilities. But there have also been various proposals to <em>renew<\/em> public housing initiatives that look to learn from the mistakes of the past while keeping to the goal of housing the poor. One of the largest programs, the federal HOPE VI program, is an ongoing federal project to revitalize public housing areas with architecture focused on crime prevention. This focus on crime prevention is inspired by Oscar Newman\u2019s \u2018defensible space\u2019 concept &#8212; the idea that if people feel more ownership over a space, they\u2019ll be more watchful over how their neighbors use it, thus curbing crime.<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hhh.umn.edu\/directory\/ed-goetz\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Edward Goetz<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 2011. \u201c<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1177\/0042098010375323\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gentrification in Black and White: The Racial Impact of Public Housing Demolition in American Cities<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Urban Studies<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 48(8): 1581-1604.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hhh.umn.edu\/directory\/ed-goetz\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Edward G. Goetz<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 2000. \u201c<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/0735-2166.00048\/abstract\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Politics of Poverty Deconcentration and Housing Demolition<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Journal of Urban Affairs<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 22(2): 157-173.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/wagner.nyu.edu\/community\/faculty\/jerry-salama\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jerry J. Salama<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 1999. \u201c<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/10511482.1999.9521329\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Redevelopment of Distressed Public Housing: Early Results from the HOPE VI Projects in Atlanta, Chicago, and San Antonio<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u201d <em>Housing Policy Debate<\/em> 10(1): 95-142.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.defensiblespace.com\/author.htm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oscar Newman<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 1972. <\/span><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.defensiblespace.com\/book.htm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Defensible Space<\/span><\/a><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. New York: Macmillan.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public housing has a long and troubled history in the United States. In recent years, the demolishing of public housing in cities like Chicago has been one of the most prominent images of decline. For sociologists, it is important to understand not just the problems with and eventual failures of post-war public housing, but also [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,85,14],"tags":[38541,38546,42264,38542],"class_list":["post-1335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inequality","category-politics","category-race","tag-inequality","tag-politics","tag-public-housing","tag-race"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1335"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1341,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335\/revisions\/1341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}