Pruitt-Igoe Myth Film || Response

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This documentary film depicted how the American city has changed during the twentieth-century. There were slums across many cities in the nation. In St. Louis, Chicago, deteriorating buildings and living conditions prompted redevelopment to prevent the loss of property value. The population was also climbing. This eventually led to the clearing of slums which were supplanted by high-rise and high-density public housing. These homes became known as the Pruitt-Igoe homes. However, Pruitt-Igoe ultimately changed into a breeding ground for violence and crime. It is referred to as the largest public housing failure in United States history.

This was actually the second time I watched it – the first time was in art class last semester. Yet, I still enjoyed it as much as I did initially. It was mainly because of the reminiscent interviewees who talked about their genuinely happy experiences at Pruitt-Igoe. Their emotions gave the documentary an exciting and colorful aspect. In the beginning of the film, several interviewees smiled as they talked about how Pruitt-Igoe changed their life for the better. Their homes were spacious, beautiful, and sanitary compared to the slums they came from. Christmas was a wonderful time for residents to get together and celebrate. Hence, towards the end of the film, an interviewee cried as she insisted for people not to see Pruitt-Igoe for just the bad. It provided one of the happiest times of her life.

Among the bad that had changed Pruitt-Igoe were the increases in crime and violence. The public housing project actually became a breeding ground for bad behavior soon after it was opened. Elevators started to smell like urine, were not lit, and eventually did not work. Garbage was not properly thrown out. In a way, Pruitt-Igoe started to resemble the slums again. I believe that the two major forces that contributed to the decline of Pruitt-Igoe was the adult to children ratio and the lack of government funding for maintenance.

There were a lot more children compared to adults at Pruitt-Igoe. Because of that, there is less supervision. Without adult figures around, children do whatever they want. Bad ideas from one child to another spread quickly and that was a major contribution to the fall of Pruitt-Igoe. The lack of security also enforced bad behavior. Since there was no security officers patrolling any of the buildings, ill-behaving individuals felt comfortable committing crimes and violence. Thus, it was a great mistake for the city of St. Louis to not provide the necessary funding for security measures such as officiers and cameras.

It was certainly very sad to see the buildings being demolished over and over again in the documentary. One main reason is because I strongly believe that if the city carried out their vision of providing safe and successful public housing at Pruitt-Igoe, it would still stand today. They constructed extremely dense public housing, so security and maintenance was absolutely necessary for the welfare of the residents. It would not have turned into a breeding ground for all the bad that defined Pruitt-Igoe. Instead, it would have been home to many happy and grateful residents – just like the interviewees whom loved Pruitt-Igoe. So, two questions I would like to ask would be: Why didn’t the government carry out what they envisioned public housing to be in St. Louis after spending so much money to built Pruitt-Igoe? Looking back, is there regret that the city didn’t provide funding for safety and maintenance measures?

Selling the City in Crisis- Response

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In the chapter, I found it a surprise how New York City’s ratings in the 1970s were so poor. One of the reasons stated by Harries Brenton was because the city had “bad publicity…because of crime, strike, and welfare, etc.” Although this may be true, I find the comment arguable. A city would statistically have more crime and welfare because there are more people. In addition, a city would have more strikes because there are more jobs. I find this particular reason made by Brenton for the low rating of New York more of a correlation than causation.

What also shocked me was the fact that the highways did the opposite of what was thought to happen. Instead of bringing commuters to the city to work, the companies left the city to set up in the suburbs. I was a bit unclear why this would happen, besides the fact that taxes are lower. Perhaps it is because from what I see now, there are more businesses in the city than in the suburbs (specifically the location of large companies). I always thought being in the city would be ideal because it is connected closer to other businesses, and if people from other countries want to work with a company, being in the city is easier and more convenient. I would rather go to London than Purbeck (a small, not well-known city in England).

In addition, it is interesting that once these businesses leave, the city declines. This reminds me of the phrase “Corporate America” and how business really affects and influences life. Are we the only country that has cities that are only sustainable if there are businesses? I can think of examples of Detroit and Philadelphia where they used to have a lot of business because of the manufacturing industry; however, once society moved towards service industry, these places lost work and now the cities have low standard of living. There must be a solution to this problem.

I enjoyed how this reading has a marketing-style view on how New York City was “rebranded.” The ABNY used the “power breakfast” which at first was not too successful and cost a lot of money. However, by using important people to talk, it is like an endorsement/sponsorship. People listen and pay attention to famous, important, high-up people. Furthermore, I finally know how the phrase ” The Big Apple” came about. It is creative and smart how ABNY was able to reimage the city. I was shocked that they spent money on policing, when all this time I thought it was the mayor. Also, how ABNY pushed the image of the apple as New York is incredible because it is still seen today. Although there was a lot of money put into all of this, ABNY truly was successful. It is inspiring to see how marketing can play a role to change/”revamp” the city. I used to think marketing was for business, but now I see it can also be to market a city to fit a certain image.

However, one thing that amazed me was the fact ABNY tried to censor television. This reminds me of how China censors everything that goes against their own country. I was just surprised ABNY was kind of able to get away with it, because isn’t this hindering the first amendment of freedom of speech? Yes, by not talking about mugging in Central Park you prevent the public from hearing and knowing anything bad happening. Yet, on the other hand, you are misleading them and possibly making them naive to the dangers that can happen.

 

New Metropolis

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Bloom spoke about Robert Moses and the housing project of New York in Chapter seven. However, within the context of what he was writing certain things must be highlighted which can show his true value. These things include his credibility and the positive and negative consequence the importance of his name means and how altogether this leads to an ‘inflated’ Robert Moses.

The first thing which is importnat to note in Bloom’s writing is how important Robert Moses actually is and how this played a motif throughout the chapter. One of the thing that Bloom mentions is how important Robert Moses was to the city of New York, which is obvious considering that he is the cause for New york being the way it is. But, what I found really cool is that he overemphasized it by citing an example where Mayor LaGuardia credited Robert Moses over the housing authority regarding the 1942 housing project. The fact that Bloom speaks about him so highly forces us to picture him as the poster boy for the New York housing authority which comes with both good and negative aspects.

Regarding the negative aspect, well that comes with anytime someone is the poster boy of any organization. If something goes wrong within the organization the poster boy has the potential to be blamed for it because they ‘represent the organization’ and they then have to defend the organization. For example when Robert Moses had to defend the claim that his housing projects were deemed racist because it was “bowing to racial prejudices” and Moses had to defend the project. Take another example, if one soldier of the US accidentally killed an innocent person for no reason, Obama might make a statement apologizing on behalf of the military. In this analogy Obama (Robert Moses) is trying to defend the honor of the US military (housing project).

On the other hand the positive that thing that happens with being the poster boy as can be seen with the chapter is how when the ‘organization’ does something right you are looked upon with more respect, or just better overall. For example, the chapter mentioned how Robert Moses and the authority of housing started grouping together lower class housing along with the middle class housing and the chapter says this is good planning. As can be indicated fromt he article though is that  it says Robert Moses and the authority which again shows him as the poster boy. Furthermore,, since he is the poster boy and in this case something good is being done by the housing authority Robert Moses gets some credit.

The chapter was written in my opinion as an ode to Robert Moses and the New ork housing authority. But, I feel it is important to note how throughout the chapter Moses was continuously highlighted in a way that made him look and sound more important. Again in no way am I implying he isn’t great, rather I just feel that because the chapter mentioned him too much they overused Moses and his ideologies and he’s kind of inflated, but just because he’s overrated that doesn’t mean he’s not great.

Designs for a New Metropolis

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In the past, New York City did not have many regulations for housing, which led to many slums filling the city. In the 1940s, Robert Moses began plans to clear most of these slums without using too much money. In order to clear out the slums, the NYCHA had started with vacant land sites. After building on these vacant land sites of their choice, they began their renovation of slums. However, these slum clearances did not seem too thought out in the initial stages.

Moses had strongly opposed vacant land projects, because his main goal was slum clearance. However, I think this was a critical step for slum clearance to occur. After the war, there was housing shortage. So, while clearing the slums, where would the tenants living there go? By beginning with vacant land projects, they are providing these tenants places to consider moving to, which would save the NYCHA some money and time. This is because while planning out slum clearance, the main problem of the program was moving the tenants of slums. By working on vacant land sites, the NYCHA would partially solve the problem of having to move tenants in slums before beginning their slum clearance. A possible step the organization could have taken was creating temporary contracts with tenants to allow them to stay in buildings from vacant land projects until the slum clearance is completed. Thus, I think it would have been better to focus or spend more time on vacant land projects before beginning slum clearance.

In the plan for slum clearance, the main focus was destruction of the slums and creation of better housing. However, when Moses and authority took action, they began pairing opposites: private housing and public housing, and low income neighborhoods and middle income neighborhoods. These pairs created a balance in the program, but I believe this balance would affect the people that build the neighborhood. It is in human nature for people to flock together with their own kind. This can be seen in low income families, in which they would form ‘ghettos’ in a neighborhood. Thus, if a low income neighborhood surrounds a middle income neighborhood, would there not be tension between the two neighborhoods? Herman Stichman mentions that these ‘ghettos’ prevent different income levels from meeting in neighborhood activities and fostering class feeling (134). Although the article does not mention an neighborhood tensions, I think the NYCHA should have considered the social aspect in slum clearance.

The success of New York housing after all the creations of new buildings appealed to many other cities. For example, St. Louis created high rise housing because Mayor Joseph Darst was impressed by New York’s skyscrapers and NYCHA’s towers (150). However, their development did not turn out the same way as New York, due to their lack of consideration of cost in the initial stages. When the city realized how costly the construction would be, there had to be major changes in the plans. Many of these changes involved making the rooms smaller and removing amenities. Along with other changes, the final creation of the public housing building was not any more different than slum housing (151). If these cities had thoroughly planned and spent more time working on these public housing, I believe they would have been successful.

The problems in past housing in any city was lack of regulation, which led to slum housing. To counter slum housing in New York, Robert Moses ‘created’ the plan of slum clearance. The main problem with the plan was moving tenants around for slum clearance to happen, which could have been partially solved with vacant land projects. Even though NYCHA began with vacant land projects, they only built a small amount of buildings for these projects before moving on to slum clearance. Regardless, there were certain aspects of slum clearance I thought would bring failure to the program, but in the end it became extremely successful.

Response to Bloom

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In Chapter 7 of Public Housing that Worked: New York in the Twentieth Century, Nicholas Dagen Bloom describes the public housing projects built in New York City around the time of Robert Moses. These public housing projects were large and bland. Some of the buildings that were torn down to build them had been serving their communities well. The developments may have been more beneficial to the city if they had been designed to incorporate some of the existing structures for a more pleasing appearance.

Unfortunately, in order to cut costs for public housing, sacrifices must be made. In the case of the public housing projects during this time, the main sacrifice made by NYCHA was in the aesthetics of the buildings. Instead of making the buildings architecturally significant, they were all built as tall plain towers with the same bricks. I think the ideas that led to this trend made sense logically but I think the result was very unfortunate.

Another problem with the actions of NYCHA during this time was that they demolished many things that didn’t need to be demolished. In most slum areas, there were certain buildings that were in far better shape than others. NYCHA demolished these because they were not practical for the planned developments. NYCHA also demolished many businesses that were contributing to their communities in order to accomplish the goals for their developments. In some cases, stores were unnecessarily demolished simply to make life inconvenient for the people of the community so they would be more willing to leave. Although NYCHA was demolishing businesses, they did not provide much commercial space in their development because they didn’t want to compete with private enterprise. While this reasoning is logical, I think it was detrimental for the communities NYCHA built.

Perhaps NYCHA could have done a better job of building more pleasing buildings at lower costs if they had found ways to incorporate some of the older buildings into the projects instead of demolishing everything to rebuild. In some cases, renovation might have been a better option. I’m sure that in many of the cases, the only reason NYCHA determined that renovation wouldn’t have been worth it was because they couldn’t quantify the value of more aesthetically pleasing architecture.

I understand that there are certain constraints when building low income housing so I understand why the public housing projects were designed the way they were. The public housing projects that were built served their goals well. I do wonder, though, if it could have been possible to create better designs that would have benefitted New York City more than the ones that were built.

Response to Bloom: Design for a New Metropolis

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Bloom addresses the Robert Moses-led policy on slum clearance in the post war era in this excerpt from his book, Public Housing that Worked: New York in the Twentieth Century. Personally, I am disturbed by the phrase “slum-clearance.” Communities that have fallen into disrepair should not be condemned to be “cleared.” Perhaps a more constructive, democratic approach might have been to rejuvenate these communities: by renovating existing buildings, updating infrastructure such as roads, building and/or updating community spaces such as parks and libraries can all be ways to attract newer residents and businesses into the area.

The biggest problem I saw with these plans is the uninspired Tower-Block design. These projects were praised for the ability to achieve “high density” accommodation. It seems almost like an effort to take certain parts of the population and force them to occupy these specially designed structures that would have “low ground coverage.” Rejecting the idea that the existing community might have any value at all and preemptively making the decision to destroy everything to replace it with these tasteless structures would not fixed the neighborhoods – it would have killed them.

I found it odd that getting public-private partnerships to happen in the target areas was seen as such a monumental task. Personally, I fail to see why existing private properties in slums, at least the ones that were not in disrepair were not simply allowed to stay on where possible. Instead of trying to force new private interests to move into freshly cleared area that was previously considered a slum, perhaps allowing the private citizens of the community to make certain decisions and assume responsibility for some of the projects would have served the community better in the long run.

Without any ties to the old well-established communities, these neighborhoods would have faced a high risk of becoming rife with undesirable elements again. In this matter, I agree with Jane Jacobs: having a community of people who are well established in the neighborhood and are invested in the happenings is the most sure-fire way of preventing crime and other unfavorable elements. Bloom says that having uniform designs allowed for easier “long-term maintenance.” This may be true but I am not convinced that “maintenance” is what these communities needed. Building these super structures and then regularly “maintaining” them through government agencies does not achieve any greater value for the city. Instead, if these communities had been renovated and given the right incentives, they might have grown to not need any government maintenance or oversight at all.

I agree with Mr. Lewis Mumford, who is quoted by Bloom in his piece. These buildings appear to have been “designed by one mind…intended for people of one class, bred like bees to fill these honeycombs.” It is shocking to me that ideas of “economic design” and “long-term maintenance” would be the foremost considerations while dealing with in-need communities.

 

Designs for New Metropolis

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This article points out an issue that all city planners have faced. My family comes from Bombay, and in Bombay there are literally slums with people living in shacks. The Indian government is striving to remove all the slums; however there is always that issue of what kind of housing should be built along with what to do with the millions of people that are to be displaced. Obviously there are both pro and cons to the situation, and I believe that Bloom clearly outlines them in his piece.

At first thought the idea that government will build subsidized housing sounds a great use of taxpayer money, however the notion that in order for this to happen there will be a destruction of existing homes is what makes this entire thing questionable. The most surprising for me was that how poorly built these new apartments were. For instance Robert Moses and the NYCHA both implemented homes that didn’t even have toilet seats or closet doors in their public housing projects. First off, these people were shifted out of their homes, and even if they wished to live in public housing instead, I am sure they would want to live in minimal humane conditions. If the government is to build something for its people then the living space should be accommodating. For instance in India, many of these poor people who move into government housing end up selling their place and move out to the suburbs where they can create a whole new life for themselves.

The original goal of trying to make these “slums” into an “attractive part of the city” is reasonable, however the execution of it is where something went wrong. When walking through the Bronx and the Lower East Side and looking at what we call today the “projects,” I realized that these places don’t make the city more attractive, but rather it serves as a monotonous public space. Bloom describes how the city planners of the future tried to fix this issue by changing little things such as the color of the bricks, nevertheless it clearly did not have the intended effect. Also the “decentralization” of these slums so rapidly changed the dynamic and demographics of these areas, because these places were wiped out clean. The demographics were mixed with the lower and middle class living together, causing higher crime rates and security issues.

Another interesting point that Bloom points out is that perhaps Robert Moses’ racism was the cause of such mundane and to a point cruel housing system. The NYCHA was also to blame for this, but going along with the past reading, part of the reason could be his disdain for the lower class. If that were to stand true, then in my eyes that is a corrupt government system. It’s also important to note that the NYCHA sponsored the building of homes that served a lower density of people, but were of higher quality. To put lower class people to a disadvantage when they’re already struggling is unethical on Robert Moses part.

Last but not least, I want to explore the question of what to do in the future. Like I noted before, although there may be a diminishing population of slums in America, this issue is still of high relevance to the rest of the world. What are the most efficient methods to please both the city planners as well as those residing in the “slums”? Is there a cost efficient method to this issue? Overall, this piece written by Bloom brought light to issues that I never even knew existed in our public housing system. The mistakes that were made in the past have unfortunately carried forward and have created displeasing public areas.

 

 

 

Designs for a New Metropolis response

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The reading by Bloom gives me a different perspective about Robert Moses. In Robert Caro’s the Power Broker, Moses was portrayed as a more negative person. However, Chapter 7 Designs for a New Metropolis actually surprises me by giving me a different view about Robert Moses and his slum clearance project.

During the postwar years, cities were mainly focused on slum clearance project, I can certain understand that. Those people lived in poverty were clustered in the certain areas of the cities; and the society often view these areas as destructive and dangerous. There was segregation among different economic classes, where poor people usually live in a neighborhood with same social economic classes. I agree with Bloom that “central decay destroys the vital parts, and …nothing is more destructive than decentralization.” The idea of Decentralization was that many people were moving out of cities and to live in suburbs. The decline of city population would definitely impact city’s development. In order to create a successful city I think that some of the slum clearance projects were necessary.

However, there are a lot of criticisms regarding slum clearance project. Robert Moses was greatly criticized for not making efforts to relocate those poor people properly. The project destroyed many families’ home, and these families ended up moving to another slum area. Robert Moses was blamed for not taking care of these poor, and forcing them to move into another slum areas. “There is a natural desire to link all that is distasteful from the postwar period to Robert Moses.” I think that it was unfair for Robert Moses that despite all his efforts of trying to create a better city, people still perceive him as a more negative person.

Bloom gives an example of certain housings had lack of toilet bowl covers and closet doors. What even surprised me was that people blamed Robert Moses for that. As Bloom explains, the lack of closet door was Alfred Rheinstein’s innovation; Moses shouldn’t be the one to blamed. Also Bloom believes that “Moses should only be blamed for extending NYCHA’s influence over more territory.” NYCHA started these ideas, and Moses adopted the growing preferences for slum clearance project. After Moses became powerful, he then started implementing these ideas to his urban renewal projects.

The arguments in Bloom’s reading make me rethinking about our previous reading regarding Robert Moses. In the end of introduction of the Power Broker, Robert Caro said “Moses himself, who feels his works will make him immortal, believes he will be justified by history”. It makes me wonder that if people today started to appreciate his works more, and maybe he will be justified by history.

Response to Planning a Social Disaster

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The Chicago Housing Authority, or CHA did a very poor job in planning the high-rise projects that they build and many, including Hunt, consider the projects to be a “social disaster.” While several factors could contribute to the failure of the housing projects, Hunt makes a good case about how the youth to adult ratio and the tallness of the buildings to be the main causes of the crime and vandalism of these buildings.

Hunt mentioned some of Jane Jacobs’ ideas such as how residents in communities can band together to keep a watch on the neighborhood. The will band together and use “collective efficacy” to police themselves, maintaining social order and minimizing crime (146). While in many neighborhoods this is the case, this did not occur in the CHA’s housing projects. I found Hunt’s discussion of the youth to adult ratios to be very interesting and an important factor in social order and the ability for a neighborhood to actually function as a community to police itself.

The CHA’s housing projects with family public housing had some of the highest youth to adult ratios. It was interesting that this occurred not because of organic reasons, such as parents just wanting to have many children, but because the CHA built housing specifically to accommodate families with many children. I was surprised by the lack of foresight governing the CHA. The CHA did not look at the consequences of housing such large amounts of children in one housing area. The CHA built “Children’s Cities,” excluding childless families and serving families with substantial amounts of children (149). The CHA did not rely on forethought and was trying to match the growing demand for large apartments. As demand continued to increase, the CHA built even more housing for larger families while “no analyses … wrestled with the ramifications of this choice” (151). I found it surprising that no research was done either to look at similar housing projects that have failed such as the one in St. Louis. St. Louis had to demolish its housing project after building housing for large families and having high youth to adult ratios that caused social disorder.

The CHA went on building housing for large families without considering the consequences, perhaps because during the time there was a “limited understanding of how adults informally police social space” (151). Adults would often police the neighborhoods themselves in communities and parents informed neighboring parents of their child’s wrongdoings. This dynamic could no longer occur as the youth-adult ratio grew. Neighbors could no longer keep track of all the children in a neighborhood and there was no sense of community developed in a tall building (153). Thus the result was “social disorder on a staggering scale” (155). I was very surprised by the extreme damage enacted by children in the housing that Hunt detailed, such as how the laundry machines were broken and residents had to wash clothing in their apartments, wooden doors had to be replaced with steel, and the stairwells were even used for toilet purposes (156).

The large amount of children and the smaller amount of adults to control them contributed to many of the examples of crime, vandalism, and social disaster in the CHA housing, but there were also several other contributing factors. The project housing areas were hated by the tenants and often the people living there were “embittered,” lashing out “in response to their victimization” (158). There are many complex reasons for the social disaster but I agree with Hunt that the vandalism is a “crime of opportunity” which occurred more often because of the high youth-adult ratios and the lack of adult supervision. I wonder why the CHA proceeded with so little thought as to the future of the housing and why they did not for see such a disaster?

Towers of Dreams Response

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This article by Michael Kimmelman is about a St. Louis public-housing complex, Pruitt-Igoe, and a housing cooperative in Manhattan, Penn South. The two housing complexes were the same structurally, with brick and concrete high rises scattered across grassy plots, but while Penn South is thriving today, Pruitt-Igoe became known for its poverty, crime, and segregations and was demolished in 1972 after. The question this poses, and what the article explores is why the two housing complexes went completely different ways.

Pruitt-Igoe had problems from the beginning and it sounds like it was destined to be doomed. There was inadequate money set aside for maintenance, welfare rules that said abled-bodied men couldn’t stay with a women who received government aid, and night staff who kicked out fathers from the apartments. This just leads to poorly maintained buildings as well as separated families. This along with the segregated towns that led to a loss of jobs in the city just spells disaster. I think that if a place is built well and similar to other successful housing, if it is not taken care of, and the people in it are unable to support themselves, it will just have bad results. The economic factors are probably one of the largest in determining the success of a place.

Penn South had a stable income from the maintenance payments and retail units in commercial buildings the co-op owned. The residents invested in the buildings and made improvements, which means that they cared and were able to get jobs and support themselves and their families and also have enough to spend on improvements. Penn South was in a different situation from Pruitt-Igoe, so it is not surprise that there were different results. Because the structures were about the same for both, it seems like architecture isn’t as large of a role in the success of buildings as the residents and how much money they and the building has. Architecture may play a role in how successful housing complexes are, but I believe the comparison between the two show that social and economic factors play a larger role.

Some of the comments of the article talk about how the comparisons between Pruitt-Igoe and Penn South don’t really make sense, because as the article says, Penn South isn’t public housing but Pruitt-Igoe is. Penn South is made affordable to working class families, but isn’t public housing. I think that there are often stereotypes associated with public housing, such as it being dangerous, which just already makes it more likely to not thrive and be successful. In addition, Penn South is in an affluent, diverse neighborhood in New York, whereas Pruitt-Igoe wasn’t. Architecture might have been similar, but the surrounding areas were not.

It would be interesting to compare other public housing complexes that were similarly built and in the same situation as Pruitt-Igoe to see what has become of them to see what causes success and failure. It would also be interesting to look into what the city and other places are planning for the future of affordable housing. Given that most NROCs in New York are towers in the park, is this what the city is planning? Is there enough space to build more places like this? Or will land have to be taken to build more housing? There are so many questions to be asked about the future of housing in New York and it remains to be see what will be done and if it will all be successful.