Public Housing That Worked

Public Housing That Worked

Author: Nicholas Dagen Bloom

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2014-08-04

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 0812201329

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

When it comes to large-scale public housing in the United States, the consensus for the past decades has been to let the wrecking balls fly. The demolition of infamous projects, such as Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis and the towers of Cabrini-Green in Chicago, represents to most Americans the fate of all public housing. Yet one notable exception to this national tragedy remains. The New York City Housing Authority, America's largest public housing manager, still maintains over 400,000 tenants in its vast and well-run high-rise projects. While by no means utopian, New York City's public housing remains an acceptable and affordable option. The story of New York's success where so many other housing authorities faltered has been ignored for too long. Public Housing That Worked shows how New York's administrators, beginning in the 1930s, developed a rigorous system of public housing management that weathered a variety of social and political challenges. A key element in the long-term viability of New York's public housing has been the constant search for better methods in fields such as tenant selection, policing, renovation, community affairs, and landscape design. Nicholas Dagen Bloom presents the achievements that contradict the common wisdom that public housing projects are inherently unmanageable. By focusing on what worked, rather than on the conventional history of failure and blame, Bloom provides useful models for addressing the current crisis in affordable urban housing. Public Housing That Worked is essential reading for practitioners and scholars in the areas of public policy, urban history, planning, criminal justice, affordable housing management, social work, and urban affairs.


Book Synopsis Public Housing That Worked by : Nicholas Dagen Bloom

Download or read book Public Housing That Worked written by Nicholas Dagen Bloom and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2014-08-04 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it comes to large-scale public housing in the United States, the consensus for the past decades has been to let the wrecking balls fly. The demolition of infamous projects, such as Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis and the towers of Cabrini-Green in Chicago, represents to most Americans the fate of all public housing. Yet one notable exception to this national tragedy remains. The New York City Housing Authority, America's largest public housing manager, still maintains over 400,000 tenants in its vast and well-run high-rise projects. While by no means utopian, New York City's public housing remains an acceptable and affordable option. The story of New York's success where so many other housing authorities faltered has been ignored for too long. Public Housing That Worked shows how New York's administrators, beginning in the 1930s, developed a rigorous system of public housing management that weathered a variety of social and political challenges. A key element in the long-term viability of New York's public housing has been the constant search for better methods in fields such as tenant selection, policing, renovation, community affairs, and landscape design. Nicholas Dagen Bloom presents the achievements that contradict the common wisdom that public housing projects are inherently unmanageable. By focusing on what worked, rather than on the conventional history of failure and blame, Bloom provides useful models for addressing the current crisis in affordable urban housing. Public Housing That Worked is essential reading for practitioners and scholars in the areas of public policy, urban history, planning, criminal justice, affordable housing management, social work, and urban affairs.


Affordable Housing in New York

Affordable Housing in New York

Author: Nicholas Dagen Bloom

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-12-31

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0691207054

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A richly illustrated history of below-market housing in New York, from the 1920s to today A colorful portrait of the people, places, and policies that have helped make New York City livable, Affordable Housing in New York is a comprehensive, authoritative, and richly illustrated history of the city's public and middle-income housing from the 1920s to today. Plans, models, archival photos, and newly commissioned portraits of buildings and tenants by sociologist and photographer David Schalliol put the efforts of the past century into context, and the book also looks ahead to future prospects for below-market subsidized housing. A dynamic account of an evolving city, Affordable Housing in New York is essential reading for understanding and advancing debates about how to enable future generations to call New York home.


Book Synopsis Affordable Housing in New York by : Nicholas Dagen Bloom

Download or read book Affordable Housing in New York written by Nicholas Dagen Bloom and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-31 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A richly illustrated history of below-market housing in New York, from the 1920s to today A colorful portrait of the people, places, and policies that have helped make New York City livable, Affordable Housing in New York is a comprehensive, authoritative, and richly illustrated history of the city's public and middle-income housing from the 1920s to today. Plans, models, archival photos, and newly commissioned portraits of buildings and tenants by sociologist and photographer David Schalliol put the efforts of the past century into context, and the book also looks ahead to future prospects for below-market subsidized housing. A dynamic account of an evolving city, Affordable Housing in New York is essential reading for understanding and advancing debates about how to enable future generations to call New York home.


Public Housing Myths

Public Housing Myths

Author: Nicholas Dagen Bloom

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2015-04-10

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0801456258

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Popular opinion holds that public housing is a failure; so what more needs to be said about seventy-five years of dashed hopes and destructive policies? Over the past decade, however, historians and social scientists have quietly exploded the common wisdom about public housing. Public Housing Myths pulls together these fresh perspectives and unexpected findings into a single volume to provide an updated, panoramic view of public housing. With eleven chapters by prominent scholars, the collection not only covers a groundbreaking range of public housing issues transnationally but also does so in a revisionist and provocative manner. With students in mind, Public Housing Myths is organized thematically around popular preconceptions and myths about the policies surrounding big city public housing, the places themselves, and the people who call them home. The authors challenge narratives of inevitable decline, architectural determinism, and rampant criminality that have shaped earlier accounts and still dominate public perception.


Book Synopsis Public Housing Myths by : Nicholas Dagen Bloom

Download or read book Public Housing Myths written by Nicholas Dagen Bloom and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-10 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular opinion holds that public housing is a failure; so what more needs to be said about seventy-five years of dashed hopes and destructive policies? Over the past decade, however, historians and social scientists have quietly exploded the common wisdom about public housing. Public Housing Myths pulls together these fresh perspectives and unexpected findings into a single volume to provide an updated, panoramic view of public housing. With eleven chapters by prominent scholars, the collection not only covers a groundbreaking range of public housing issues transnationally but also does so in a revisionist and provocative manner. With students in mind, Public Housing Myths is organized thematically around popular preconceptions and myths about the policies surrounding big city public housing, the places themselves, and the people who call them home. The authors challenge narratives of inevitable decline, architectural determinism, and rampant criminality that have shaped earlier accounts and still dominate public perception.


New Deal Ruins

New Deal Ruins

Author: Edward G. Goetz

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2013-03-15

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0801467543

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Public housing was an integral part of the New Deal, as the federal government funded public works to generate economic activity and offer material support to families made destitute by the Great Depression, and it remained a major element of urban policy in subsequent decades. As chronicled in New Deal Ruins, however, housing policy since the 1990s has turned to the demolition of public housing in favor of subsidized units in mixed-income communities and the use of tenant-based vouchers rather than direct housing subsidies. While these policies, articulated in the HOPE VI program begun in 1992, aimed to improve the social and economic conditions of urban residents, the results have been quite different. As Edward G. Goetz shows, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and there has been a loss of more than 250,000 permanently affordable residential units. Goetz offers a critical analysis of the nationwide effort to dismantle public housing by focusing on the impact of policy changes in three cities: Atlanta, Chicago, and New Orleans.Goetz shows how this transformation is related to pressures of gentrification and the enduring influence of race in American cities. African Americans have been disproportionately affected by this policy shift; it is the cities in which public housing is most closely identified with minorities that have been the most aggressive in removing units. Goetz convincingly refutes myths about the supposed failure of public housing. He offers an evidence-based argument for renewed investment in public housing to accompany housing choice initiatives as a model for innovative and equitable housing policy.


Book Synopsis New Deal Ruins by : Edward G. Goetz

Download or read book New Deal Ruins written by Edward G. Goetz and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-15 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public housing was an integral part of the New Deal, as the federal government funded public works to generate economic activity and offer material support to families made destitute by the Great Depression, and it remained a major element of urban policy in subsequent decades. As chronicled in New Deal Ruins, however, housing policy since the 1990s has turned to the demolition of public housing in favor of subsidized units in mixed-income communities and the use of tenant-based vouchers rather than direct housing subsidies. While these policies, articulated in the HOPE VI program begun in 1992, aimed to improve the social and economic conditions of urban residents, the results have been quite different. As Edward G. Goetz shows, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and there has been a loss of more than 250,000 permanently affordable residential units. Goetz offers a critical analysis of the nationwide effort to dismantle public housing by focusing on the impact of policy changes in three cities: Atlanta, Chicago, and New Orleans.Goetz shows how this transformation is related to pressures of gentrification and the enduring influence of race in American cities. African Americans have been disproportionately affected by this policy shift; it is the cities in which public housing is most closely identified with minorities that have been the most aggressive in removing units. Goetz convincingly refutes myths about the supposed failure of public housing. He offers an evidence-based argument for renewed investment in public housing to accompany housing choice initiatives as a model for innovative and equitable housing policy.


High-Risers

High-Risers

Author: Ben Austen

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2018-02-13

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 0062235087

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Joining the ranks of Evicted, The Warmth of Other Sons, and classic works of literary non-fiction by Alex Kotlowitz and J. Anthony Lukas, High-Risers braids personal narratives, city politics, and national history to tell the timely and epic story of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green, America’s most iconic public housing project. Built in the 1940s atop an infamous Italian slum, Cabrini-Green grew to twenty-three towers and a population of 20,000—all of it packed onto just seventy acres a few blocks from Chicago’s ritzy Gold Coast. Cabrini-Green became synonymous with crime, squalor, and the failure of government. For the many who lived there, it was also a much-needed resource—it was home. By 2011, every high-rise had been razed, the island of black poverty engulfed by the white affluence around it, the families dispersed. In this novelistic and eye-opening narrative, Ben Austen tells the story of America’s public housing experiment and the changing fortunes of American cities. It is an account told movingly though the lives of residents who struggled to make a home for their families as powerful forces converged to accelerate the housing complex’s demise. Beautifully written, rich in detail, and full of moving portraits, High-Risers is a sweeping exploration of race, class, popular culture, and politics in modern America that brilliantly considers what went wrong in our nation’s effort to provide affordable housing to the poor—and what we can learn from those mistakes.


Book Synopsis High-Risers by : Ben Austen

Download or read book High-Risers written by Ben Austen and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-02-13 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joining the ranks of Evicted, The Warmth of Other Sons, and classic works of literary non-fiction by Alex Kotlowitz and J. Anthony Lukas, High-Risers braids personal narratives, city politics, and national history to tell the timely and epic story of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green, America’s most iconic public housing project. Built in the 1940s atop an infamous Italian slum, Cabrini-Green grew to twenty-three towers and a population of 20,000—all of it packed onto just seventy acres a few blocks from Chicago’s ritzy Gold Coast. Cabrini-Green became synonymous with crime, squalor, and the failure of government. For the many who lived there, it was also a much-needed resource—it was home. By 2011, every high-rise had been razed, the island of black poverty engulfed by the white affluence around it, the families dispersed. In this novelistic and eye-opening narrative, Ben Austen tells the story of America’s public housing experiment and the changing fortunes of American cities. It is an account told movingly though the lives of residents who struggled to make a home for their families as powerful forces converged to accelerate the housing complex’s demise. Beautifully written, rich in detail, and full of moving portraits, High-Risers is a sweeping exploration of race, class, popular culture, and politics in modern America that brilliantly considers what went wrong in our nation’s effort to provide affordable housing to the poor—and what we can learn from those mistakes.


Public Housing and the Legacy of Segregation

Public Housing and the Legacy of Segregation

Author: Margery Austin Turner

Publisher: The Urban Insitute

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780877667551

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

For the past two decades the United States has been transforming distressed public housing communities, with three ambitious goals: replace distressed developments with healthy mixed-income communities; help residents relocate to affordable housing, often in the private market; and empower former public housing families toward economic self-sufficiency. The transformation has focused on deconcentrating poverty, but not on the underlying role of racial segregation in creating these distressed communities. In Public Housing and the Legacy of Segregation, scholars and public housing officials assess whether--and how--public housing policies can simultaneously address the problems of poverty and race.


Book Synopsis Public Housing and the Legacy of Segregation by : Margery Austin Turner

Download or read book Public Housing and the Legacy of Segregation written by Margery Austin Turner and published by The Urban Insitute. This book was released on 2009 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the past two decades the United States has been transforming distressed public housing communities, with three ambitious goals: replace distressed developments with healthy mixed-income communities; help residents relocate to affordable housing, often in the private market; and empower former public housing families toward economic self-sufficiency. The transformation has focused on deconcentrating poverty, but not on the underlying role of racial segregation in creating these distressed communities. In Public Housing and the Legacy of Segregation, scholars and public housing officials assess whether--and how--public housing policies can simultaneously address the problems of poverty and race.


A History of Housing in New York City

A History of Housing in New York City

Author: Richard Plunz

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 9780231062978

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since its emergence in the mid-nineteenth century as the nation's "metropolis," New York has faced the most challenging housing problems of any American city, but it has also led the nation in innovation and reform. Plunz traces New York's housing development from 1850 to the present, exploring the housing of all classes, discussing the development of types ranging from the single-family house to the high-rise apartment tower.


Book Synopsis A History of Housing in New York City by : Richard Plunz

Download or read book A History of Housing in New York City written by Richard Plunz and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its emergence in the mid-nineteenth century as the nation's "metropolis," New York has faced the most challenging housing problems of any American city, but it has also led the nation in innovation and reform. Plunz traces New York's housing development from 1850 to the present, exploring the housing of all classes, discussing the development of types ranging from the single-family house to the high-rise apartment tower.


Blueprint for Disaster

Blueprint for Disaster

Author: D. Bradford Hunt

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-08-01

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 0226360873

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Now considered a dysfunctional mess, Chicago’s public housing projects once had long waiting lists of would-be residents hoping to leave the slums behind. So what went wrong? To answer this complicated question, D. Bradford Hunt traces public housing’s history in Chicago from its New Deal roots through current mayor Richard M. Daley’s Plan for Transformation. In the process, he chronicles the Chicago Housing Authority’s own transformation from the city’s most progressive government agency to its largest slumlord. Challenging explanations that attribute the projects’ decline primarily to racial discrimination and real estate interests, Hunt argues that well-intentioned but misguided policy decisions—ranging from design choices to maintenance contracts—also paved the road to failure. Moreover, administrators who fully understood the potential drawbacks did not try to halt such deeply flawed projects as Cabrini-Green and the Robert Taylor Homes. These massive high-rise complexes housed unprecedented numbers of children but relatively few adults, engendering disorder that pushed out the working class and, consequently, the rents needed to maintain the buildings. The resulting combination of fiscal crisis, managerial incompetence, and social unrest plunged the CHA into a quagmire from which it is still struggling to emerge. Blueprint for Disaster, then,is an urgent reminder of the havoc poorly conceived policy can wreak on our most vulnerable citizens.


Book Synopsis Blueprint for Disaster by : D. Bradford Hunt

Download or read book Blueprint for Disaster written by D. Bradford Hunt and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now considered a dysfunctional mess, Chicago’s public housing projects once had long waiting lists of would-be residents hoping to leave the slums behind. So what went wrong? To answer this complicated question, D. Bradford Hunt traces public housing’s history in Chicago from its New Deal roots through current mayor Richard M. Daley’s Plan for Transformation. In the process, he chronicles the Chicago Housing Authority’s own transformation from the city’s most progressive government agency to its largest slumlord. Challenging explanations that attribute the projects’ decline primarily to racial discrimination and real estate interests, Hunt argues that well-intentioned but misguided policy decisions—ranging from design choices to maintenance contracts—also paved the road to failure. Moreover, administrators who fully understood the potential drawbacks did not try to halt such deeply flawed projects as Cabrini-Green and the Robert Taylor Homes. These massive high-rise complexes housed unprecedented numbers of children but relatively few adults, engendering disorder that pushed out the working class and, consequently, the rents needed to maintain the buildings. The resulting combination of fiscal crisis, managerial incompetence, and social unrest plunged the CHA into a quagmire from which it is still struggling to emerge. Blueprint for Disaster, then,is an urgent reminder of the havoc poorly conceived policy can wreak on our most vulnerable citizens.


High Rise Stories

High Rise Stories

Author: Audrey Petty

Publisher: McSweeney's

Published: 2013-09-15

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 1940450055

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the gripping first-person accounts of High Rise Stories, former residents of Chicago’s iconic public housing projects describe life in the now-demolished high-rises. These stories of community, displacement, and poverty in the wake of gentrification give voice to those who have long been ignored, but whose hopes and struggles exist firmly at the heart of our national identity.


Book Synopsis High Rise Stories by : Audrey Petty

Download or read book High Rise Stories written by Audrey Petty and published by McSweeney's. This book was released on 2013-09-15 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the gripping first-person accounts of High Rise Stories, former residents of Chicago’s iconic public housing projects describe life in the now-demolished high-rises. These stories of community, displacement, and poverty in the wake of gentrification give voice to those who have long been ignored, but whose hopes and struggles exist firmly at the heart of our national identity.


When Public Housing was Paradise

When Public Housing was Paradise

Author: J. S. Fuerst

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780252072130

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Collecting seventy-nine oral histories from former public housing residents and staff, J. S. Fuerst's When Public Housing Was Paradise is a powerful testament to the fact that well-designed, well-managed low-rent housing has worked, as well as a demonstration of how it could be made to work again. J. S. Fuerst has been involved with public housing in Chicago for more than half a century. He retired from Loyola University, where he was a professor of social welfare policy. He was the editor of Public Housing in Europe and America. D. Bradford Hunt is an assistant professor of social science at Roosevelt University. John Hope Franklin is James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University. He has served as president of the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and many more.


Book Synopsis When Public Housing was Paradise by : J. S. Fuerst

Download or read book When Public Housing was Paradise written by J. S. Fuerst and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collecting seventy-nine oral histories from former public housing residents and staff, J. S. Fuerst's When Public Housing Was Paradise is a powerful testament to the fact that well-designed, well-managed low-rent housing has worked, as well as a demonstration of how it could be made to work again. J. S. Fuerst has been involved with public housing in Chicago for more than half a century. He retired from Loyola University, where he was a professor of social welfare policy. He was the editor of Public Housing in Europe and America. D. Bradford Hunt is an assistant professor of social science at Roosevelt University. John Hope Franklin is James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University. He has served as president of the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and many more.