Public Housing Myths

This compilation of essays published in 2015 seeks to debunk certain notions of why public housing as a concept and social policy has failed.  Not surprisingly, much time is spent using New York as the template to debunk these ideas, in part because it is the largest public housing system in the county, but also because it has particular features that has enabled it to perform better than others (as a previous book discussed on this site has noted).  Generally, it is safe to say that for political reasons and beyond, public housing is developed in poorer, struggling neighborhoods, enabling many of the bad elements that are associated with the projects to thrive.  And, as a more macro feature, the fate of public housing usually follows the overall health of the city in which it stands.  That is, when the industrial base in cities like Cleveland or St. Louis goes into decline, the ability of those cities to fund maintenance at public housing, and for its tenants to pay rent, mirrors the overall local economy.  Yet, even as public housing has not lived up to the utopian ideals that underpinned its conception, the reality is not as stark as one would be led to believe.  And the need for its continued existence and maintenance only grows stronger.