Public housing complexes were seen as concentrating poverty both directly and indirectly. It would directly concentrate poverty because you had to be poor to be in public housing. But it indirectly concentrated poverty because anyone living around them in the private market who had any choices at all in the housing market would flee those neighborhoods, leaving only those with the fewest resources. And so, this notion of spatial concentration was immediately attractive to more progressive social scientists and liberal policy makers. The idea that we could significantly deconcentrate poverty if we just tore these units down, gave people the means to move elsewhere and then rebuilt, but rebuilt at a lower density.
Featuring Edward Goetz on his book New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice, and Public Housing Policy. Goetz tells the story of American public housing and then its destruction and dismantling, which took off in the 1980s and accelerated during the 90s under the Clinton Administration’s Hope VI program.
Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig and get our weekly newsletter by email plus swag.
Check out Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire haymarketbooks.org/books/1861-light-in-gaza