Public Housing

Michael Kimmelman, after visiting the Penn South housing cooperative in Manhattan and reflecting on the new film "The Pruitt-Igoe Myth", questions the role that design has in determining success or failure for tower in the park housing type.

Preservationists say Lathrop Homes should be preserved, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) says it should be "transformed", but what do the residents think?

Low-income residents of the Upper 9th Ward in New Orleans have lived alongside a potentially lethal legacy of federal policy decisions -- and on top of a 95-acre municipal dump.

Allison Arieff explodes the unspoken myth that public housing must look cheap and unattractive, citing some stellar examples of affordable design.

New York City Housing Authority Chairman John Rhea says that the city's own parking minimums are making it difficult to make public housing sites more mixed-use, mixed-income and financially sustainable.

La Lignon, a massive 2,780 unit housing project, was built hastily in the 70s in Switzerland to help manage a massive housing crisis. Today, some people call it home and others call it "a monster."

With great success, the city is on a fast track to transform six Great Depression-era public housing projects - totaling 4,000 units - into mixed-income housing. "People will be watching New Orleans closely," observes Linda Couch.

A new documentary promises to reveal the stories of the people who lived in the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing complex. The filmmakers promise to "implode myths" about this symbol of failed urban renewal policy.

Public housing remains one of the major dysfunctional elements in U.S. welfare policy. But in Atlanta, one innovative administrator is changing the game.

Dehumanizing urban renewal-era public housing developments across North America are being replaced by mixed-use, mixed income neighborhoods with affordable housing. Yet in Regent Park, Toronto at least, many troubling social problems remain.

Howard Husock catalogs the accomplishments of Renee Glover, the controversial leader of the Atlanta Housing Authority.

Across the country, federal funding is unable to keep up with repair costs, forcing some municipalities to cut units from their programs.

Neal Pierce argues that retiring Mayor Daley's achievements in Chicago "stand out as beacons for mayors, American and worldwide, to emulate." He attributes some of his success to sheer political skill, but also examines seven effective policy shifts.

The Cabrini-Green Housing Projects in Chicago, Illinois were some of the worst examples of the public housing towers era. This stop motion video captures the demolition of one of the last buildings left in the redevelopment process.

The Jordan Downs public housing complex in Watts, California is a perfect example of the failed projects of built mid-century. A new proposal would tear down the towers in favor of a mix of building styles connecting to the surrounding area.

Prospect Plaza, three public housing towers in Brooklyn, were vacated in 2003 for refurbishment. NYC has long renovated their public housing towers instead of tearing them down, so the announcement marks a major change for the city.

In this paper, Gustavo Rivera Jr. (Ph. D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago) evaluates the economic and sociocultural impact of recently developed public housing estates within the favelas of Belo Horizonte.

The New York City Housing Authority has come under fire because thousands of affordable rental units are sitting vacant, some for years at a time.

Photographer Michael Wolf visited Hong Kong's oldest public housing estate, and photographed 100 of the 100 ft. square rooms in the building.