What has stood out to me most was the focus on "public housing" or housing projects in St. Louis (Pruitt-Iagoe in particular) and in Chicago (Cabrini Green). Going through the voices, it seems as if people were happy in these places...many of them spoke about a sense of community and taking care of their own. Even in Mill Creek Valley (a large, urban, black neighborhood that pre-dated the Pruitt-Iagoe housing projects) there was a sense of community. We saw in the documentary today about Cabrini Green that there was not only a sense of community, but that generations of families were housed in those apartments....that people have specific and fond memories of the place. It leads one to wonder: how can a person enjoy themselves amidst the squalor? Even when there were plans for "urban renewal" and relocation of the tenants there was a uprising (particularly in Cabrini Green). Why?
I have come to the conclusion that although these housing projects became notorious for their crime and decrepitness, they fostered a sense of community. Not only that, displacement from these communities in the name of "urban renewal" tore at the very fabric that made the community what it was. It's a sad thing to hear on one hand how families deal with the inferior construction and maintenance of these buildings, and on the other hand, to hear how they are displaced because governments want to tear them down. It amazes me, particularly in the case of Pruitt-Iagoe, which was not even opened for twenty years before it was torn down. Why was it in such a degraded state? Obviously the blame cannot be placed solely on the tenants, because in what apartment buildings do you know where the tenants play a very active role in maintaining public space (such as hallways and elevators?). There is obvious foul play.. and to think that the millions of dollars that were used to build the project went to waste...to be torn down...
There is a bigger question of choice, which was brought up during class. That along with the notion of planned obsolescence in our capitalistic culture (here I go delving into economic theory again). Really, though. From my research I found that Pruitt-Iagoe, was constructed to fail...faulty from the beginning....In our Voices there are two quotes from the same year that have very different interpretations of the project. From the very beginning it was established to fail. Why? I have the hardest time trying to figure out why the housing projects are in such disrepair, and other apartment buildings are not?
What really intrigues me is the notion of "urban renewal," a term I have run into studying the history of my hometown. To me it's just euphemism for gentrification. More often than not, in the trends of cities, you see a cyclical chasing of the races....As the Great Migration occurred during and after WWII, whites moved to suburbia as blacks migrated to the cities....Now urban land is intriguing again.. superficially determined to be in style. To make the urban centers more hospitable, they go through a phase of "renewal," tearing down the slums (more often than not housing a high percentage of minorities), displacing them to the suburbs (where they may be stranded because they have no transportation into the city). Who drives this cycle? The people who have the choice in the matter..the people in power.
This reminds me of the Ervin (my scholarship program) Orientation bus tour. Our guide told us to follow the trail of money, and you will see the trend. In the real estate market that in inevitably true. Our population is growing exponentially, but not nearly as much as new houses are being developed...or redeveloped in the "renewal" lingo. So you have new houses being built, that would stay vacant if we didn't liven in an absurdly superficial capitalistic society. What drives the real estate market (and brings in money) is continual movement and flux of people...how does this happen (and this is pure speculation, but I do suspect that there is truth in it)...they help drive the city-suburb cycle of movement, capitalizing on fear of the "black people moving in." But this is a self-fulfilling prophesy. As racial and class dynamics change drastically in neighborhoods, it is inevitable that they would not be kept to the highest of standards. White flight yields no positive results to the larger community, and only contributes to fear and stereotyping..
it fascinates me at just how expansive and numerous the housing project system really is...some people have even compared it to being imprisoned. I remember one little boy saying in the Cabrini documentary that he was ashamed to tell people where he lived. I remember speaking to one of my summer co-workers (a few summers ago), who was complaining that she had to put a housing project sticker on her bumper so that she could park her car near her apartment at night. It seems like a great system...keep those who don't belong out...but it was a source of embarrassment for her...riding around with a literal label pointing out not only where you live, but allowing those who encounter you to judge you because of it..Who thought it was a good thing to lump people like this together in the first place? Did someone say, let's just put all the poor people (who just happen to be mostly black) into one area? It's a re-incarnation of the Jewish Ghetto's in Nazi Germany (complete with the wearing of labels as I pointed out in the aforementioned anecdote). Do we not learn from history? I understand that a sense of community has been established in these areas (as we are human, and as social beings, we establish communities wherever there is an aggregate of people). Yet I do not understand how people can be shepherded like sheep.. Stay in these projects! Then urban renewal hits, and people are dispersed again...pushed out of the way.
It is an injustice that is not new to history. You would think someone would have figured out by now, what is the most effective way to solve this problem. I guess the problem has yet to be effectively distinguished, for it is not a problem of "where will the poor be housed tonight," but rather, Why are the poor poor? Why can they not advance the economic ranks? Why must they require social welfare? Pruitt-Iagoe was an ill attempt to fix the more pressing superficial issue...but it dd not solve the problem. When will the problem be fixed?
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