When reading “Towers of Dreams: One Ended in Nightmare” I thought about the pros and cons of tearing down Pruitt-Igoe and if it really is comparable to Penn South. While architecturally similar, these two housing projects were in very different cities, which is the only major reason I could think of to tear down one and not the other. In the end it was an issue of race, the people of St. Louis were worried about real estate value dropping if a low income minority population continued to move in so close to the city.

What shocked me most about the article was one particular quote: “A young white suburban mother explaining in a shaky voice, ‘We have our home here, and if the colored move in and run real estate prices down, it’s bound to create tension. I think their aim is mixed marriages and becoming equal with the whites,’ she feels compelled to say.” I knew that race would be a big motivator when it came to the housing projects, but I didn’t really comprehend just how forefront it really was. It wasn’t just a fear of declining property value, but even an issue of equality. Its appalling really to think that some people not only had this kind of opinion, but they stated it openly and used it as a reason to tear down a building housing hundreds of people, and it is this kind of toxic thinking that displaced whole families in St. Louis when the housing project was torn down.