chicago housing authority: projects
In 1937 the Chicago Housing Authority began construction on the first public housing units. Later, between the years of 1959 and 1960, eleven high rise buildings were built as part of public housing (Roosevelt University . The projects were originally built post WWII to replace the city's slums with improved "large-scale, high-density, often high-rise housing exclusively for low-income families" (Hunt). Decline in the quality of life in the projects was attributed to many factors included high youth densities poor maintenance and inadequate services. Tenants struggled with elevator failure, poor heating, vandalism, and violence (Hunt).
"The mass exodus of two-parents, working class families and their replacement with non-working, female-headed families caused the bulk of change, though an unknown portion of residents shifted from work to welfare status" (Hunt).
"The mass exodus of two-parents, working class families and their replacement with non-working, female-headed families caused the bulk of change, though an unknown portion of residents shifted from work to welfare status" (Hunt).
"I was around Chicago when they built the high-rises. And before they built them these were nice low-rise, low-density neighborhoods-- single-story, two-flat buildings where everybody knew everybody. When they built the expressways and had urban renewal, they destroyed a lot of that housing and built these high-rise buildings. And they built them cheaply. So there was cost in mind: 'Why should you spend money on poor people?' And there was also an element of racism: the containment of blacks," (Lane, as told to Isay, Jones, Newman, 106).
"Racial segregation combined perfectly with racial discrimination in hiring and schooling to create vast areas of concentrated poverty--most notably in housing projects..." (Bogira).
"Racial segregation combined perfectly with racial discrimination in hiring and schooling to create vast areas of concentrated poverty--most notably in housing projects..." (Bogira).
The projects today have all been torn down. The final one, Cabrini Green, was demolished in 2010 (Hawkins).