Hunt’s analysis on the reasons of urban crime and social upheaval provide a tight, scientifically backed reasoning towards one of societies greatest challenges. Hunt examines the public housing developments spearheaded in Chicago beginning in the 1950s, specifically youth-adult ratios found in high rise buildings. Hunt specifies what it requires to have a safe, thriving community, and asserts why exactly high rises coupled with large amounts of youths undermines this fragile social balance.
Hunt criticizes the public housing authority’s policy of gearing the projects towards children and families. Many of housing units features multi-family setups such a 3, 4, and even 5 bedroom units. Unmarried singles were deterred from accessing the public housing projects facilities. As a result, statistically housing projects displayed a larger percent of youth to adults, relative to any of other parts of Chicago. While 27% was the general norm for individuals under the age of 19 in most of the city, projects averaged an astounding 61% in 1945. The projects touted as “children cities” became a mess.
High rise structures compiled the many preexisting problems with the underlining structures found in public housing projects to create a socially disparate environments. One particular example which I found compelling was the problem with elevators. Elevators in public housing projects were often prone to break downs due to various reasons such as pure neglect and vandalism. With elevators not working, tenants often found themselves either stranded in their apartments or having to walk up multiple flights of stairs. This situation proved in many respects to make housing projects unlivable. It weakened the moral of tenants, and increased the misery and sense of unruliness that already pervaded the projects. The high rise would would soon be seen to have many more functional issues.
I found Hunt’s piece to be both informative and refreshing. Urban decay and the overall failures of the public housing project system is always an interesting topic, and I particularly found how such subtle issues brought down an entire way of life for many people. It is quite fascinating how simply the ratio of children relative to adults could destroy a multimillion government project, developed by some of the greatest urban planners of the time. Hunt’s interesting perspective on child-adult ratios and high rise structures, provides another interesting lens to examine the downfall of public housing in the 50s, 60s, and 70s
I also thought that Hunt’s theories related to children explains the failures of the projects. I kind of saw the situation as a form of “Lord of the Flies” syndrome. When children are in an environment with many other children and little adult supervision, they tend to get out of hand and misbehave in ways often not exhibited in children. This added factor I believe is essential to Hunt’s thesis. Another potent factor was introduction of hard drugs to the projects such as pcp, heroin, and most famously crack and cocaine. Teenagers and young adults often became heavy users of these deteriorating drugs. I’m quite sure that poor adult supervision and guidance exacerbated the use of drugs in the projects
