A City of Neighborhoods, Segregation, Martin Lither King, and Fair Housing

I will admit that I am very gullible and easily convinced; I have accepted this fact. I'm sure that infomercials will be the demise of my bank account once I turn eighteen. Bearing all this in mind, I will admit that the selections taken from the beginning of The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto really had me believing that the idea of public housing would work. However, by writing this in the early twenty-first century, I had the rare opportunity to have "watched the ending scene before the opening credits" and I understood that this possibly smart idea was doomed to failure. Our field trip today, viewing a trajectory of housing sites ranging from the old project housing to the homes in the new Plan for Transformation, combined with our reading shed light on this issues surrounding affordable public housing.

The concept of public housing had serious issues from its onset. Everyone agreed on the need to help the poor as long as it wouldn't directly effect them. Several better suited sights were rejected because of their proximity to middle/upper class white neighborhoods, thus demonstrating the innate discrimination of the project. The need for public housing skyrocketed during and after World War II as tidal waves of people swept through Chicago seeking better opportunities. Refugees from war torn countries crammed their way onto Chicago's streets and African Americans came up from the south looking for work in war plants during the Great Migration. The city's hyper-industrialization only added fuel to the flames. This combination put a strain on Chicago's housing markets, which were already limited to African Americans through a series of restrictive housing codes. City officials needed to find a large amount of cheap housing quickly. In addition, white war veterans received benefits from a GI Bill, such as college grants, which were not available to black veterans. This widened the economic gap between the racial groups.

Suburbs were also becoming more and more popular among wealthy whites as a result of whole mortgage subsidies. In addition, the increase in suburban living led to the interstate highway system, connecting the suburbs and cities; these highways actively segregated the city. Thus, when the public housing site was chosen and the projects were built on the south side, it was secluded from the downtown area, and effectively cut off from the grid. The highway system essentially created a wall separating its largely African American population and reinforcing racial zones. An interesting note, shared by my wonderful tour leader, Sean Young, was that when the government was laying out the highway system, they built the south side exits larger and stronger in order to accommodate government tanks. This demonstrated how leaders expected unrest from the beginning. As a result, many people with limited social and economic mobility were forced to live with out the resources of the city, ultimately compounding many of their problems.

The housing projects were in no way intended for failure; indeed, for their first three years they were considered a success. In fact, European immigrants were able to benefit from the projects by using them as a stepping stone on the way to a better economic future when first coming to America. The demise of the projects only came when groups government agencies and other groups failed to keep up their end of the bargain. Only time will show weather the city's new Plan for Transformation will cure the city of some of the social ills that accompanied the projects. One part of the plan that will hopefully produce positive change is the idea of de-concentrating poverty. Consequently, the new homes will be divided into thirds and split between the Chicago Housing Authority residents, people with subsidized housing, and people buying at market rate.

An interesting disparity between the reading on the original projects and this Plan for Transformation homes that I saw today was the number of playgrounds. As described by Venkatesh the original play were inadequate for the colossal number of children living in the projects. As described by a young woman, "Children lined up seven or eight deep just waiting to use a particular piece of play equipment... upwards of 2,000 children may be cramped into one of two relatively small play areas." Thus, children created their own play spaces in elevators and on rail road tracks. This lack of proper play equipment and the immense open space in the projects opened the door for disaster, such as gang violence. However, in the new homes I visited today I saw several playgrounds. In one group of possibly 30 town homes, I counted three different play structures. Hopefully, this increase will help to combat some of the problems that inflicted the previous public housing.