Comments on: End of an error: Part 1, demolishing the inessential past http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2009/06/end-of-an-error-part-1-demolishing-the-inessential-past.html Affordable Housing Institue Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:10:03 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: David Smith http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2009/06/end-of-an-error-part-1-demolishing-the-inessential-past.html/comment-page-1#comment-35764 David Smith Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:48:26 +0000 http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/?p=10004#comment-35764 Thanks for your comments; obviously, not all public housing is bad, nor was I trying to suggest it was. Indeed the first-generation public housing stock is incredibly well built, ust purely by durability standards. It's just physically obsolescent because it was state of the art circa 1940, and houses today are much bigger, with more plumbing, electricity, bathrooms, and amenities. The physical box has become needlessly constricting. But it is an error to have high-rises that concentrate very poor families. The only families I've ever seen live successfully in dense high-rises are really wealthy ones that have lots of space per apartment. Very-low-income high-rises, with children and teenagers, have failed everywhere in the world they have been tried: London, Glasgow, Paris, and the US, to name only the places I've seen personally. The second error is a more complex linkage of economics and ownership. Start with the whole public housings dependency schema. Add direct public ownership (which can work but tends to be slow-moving and less responsive to marketplace forces or the need to innovate). Then choke off any reinvestment. Eliminate income mixing through its reverse, slow income concentration. The result is a slow economic collapse, as I wrote about in June, 2006 in Public housing: the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. As I posted last March in Housing authorities’ comparative advantages (March, 2009), housing authorities have the potential to play a critical ongoing role in the American affordable housing ecosystem. As part of that, they need in my view to embrace a vision of the essential housing authority (September, 2007 post). I'm no fan of clear-cutting neighborhoods in the name of expediency; I take your points about the cryptobiotica of communities, and have posted on it. But housing authorities also to be clear-eyed about which of their stock is worth saving and which needs to go somewhere to die. Thanks for your comments; obviously, not all public housing is bad, nor was I trying to suggest it was. Indeed the first-generation public housing stock is incredibly well built, ust purely by durability standards. It’s just physically obsolescent because it was state of the art circa 1940, and houses today are much bigger, with more plumbing, electricity, bathrooms, and amenities. The physical box has become needlessly constricting.

But it is an error to have high-rises that concentrate very poor families. The only families I’ve ever seen live successfully in dense high-rises are really wealthy ones that have lots of space per apartment. Very-low-income high-rises, with children and teenagers, have failed everywhere in the world they have been tried: London, Glasgow, Paris, and the US, to name only the places I’ve seen personally.

The second error is a more complex linkage of economics and ownership. Start with the whole public housings dependency schema. Add direct public ownership (which can work but tends to be slow-moving and less responsive to marketplace forces or the need to innovate). Then choke off any reinvestment. Eliminate income mixing through its reverse, slow income concentration. The result is a slow economic collapse, as I wrote about in June, 2006 in Public housing: the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

As I posted last March in Housing authorities’ comparative advantages (March, 2009), housing authorities have the potential to play a critical ongoing role in the American affordable housing ecosystem. As part of that, they need in my view to embrace a vision of the essential housing authority (September, 2007 post). I’m no fan of clear-cutting neighborhoods in the name of expediency; I take your points about the cryptobiotica of communities, and have posted on it. But housing authorities also to be clear-eyed about which of their stock is worth saving and which needs to go somewhere to die.

]]> By: Elizabeth Milnarik http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2009/06/end-of-an-error-part-1-demolishing-the-inessential-past.html/comment-page-1#comment-35648 Elizabeth Milnarik Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:40:33 +0000 http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/?p=10004#comment-35648 You reference the low-rise Clark Howell Houses as well-built, but under maintained and unhealthy. I would like to challenge you to take a second look at these early projects, particularly those built before the Wagner Act (Techwood and University Homes in Atlanta). Their community design principles are well-considered, and, as you mentioned, they are better built than modern market-rate construction. I propose that many of these early projects can be successfully rehabilitated as low or mixed-income housing (this has been done at Lauderdale Courts in Memphis). This has a number of advantages. 1. Demolition damages the fabric of a neighborhood. It reorients districts and upsets community balance. Rehabilitation minimizes this disruption. 2. The preservation and improvement of these complexes can be a symbol to residents and former residents who have powerful, while perhaps ambivalent, emotions about their homes. The essence of the failure of public housing is not the buildings, rather racial injustice and urban disinvestment. The rehabilitation of viable public housing projects more truly represents this history of public housing, which is checkered, rather than scorched-earth. 3. Rehabilitation is a more ecologically-sensitive decision. These buildings require significant reinvestment, and rehabilitation will never be less expensive than demolition and new construction. Rehabilitation, however, takes advantage of the embodied energy represented in these buildings, minimizes waste and establishes a "greener" precedent. 4. The community-design principles in these early projects, which create habitable, beautiful green spaces within the dense city, are important precedents as America begins to consider a more sustainable future. Rehabilitation could strip away the veneer of neglect and provide an important example for development for all urban-dwellers, regardless of income. I agree that America's housing system benefits from some demolition and decentralization, however, I believe the policy is being used as an ax, where a scalpel could be more effective. The legacy of public housing is not all "error." Many people used the system successfully at times of great need, and rehabilitation could allow us to evidence this ambivalent history. Thank you, Elizabeth Milnarik You reference the low-rise Clark Howell Houses as well-built, but under maintained and unhealthy. I would like to challenge you to take a second look at these early projects, particularly those built before the Wagner Act (Techwood and University Homes in Atlanta). Their community design principles are well-considered, and, as you mentioned, they are better built than modern market-rate construction. I propose that many of these early projects can be successfully rehabilitated as low or mixed-income housing (this has been done at Lauderdale Courts in Memphis). This has a number of advantages.
1. Demolition damages the fabric of a neighborhood. It reorients districts and upsets community balance. Rehabilitation minimizes this disruption.
2. The preservation and improvement of these complexes can be a symbol to residents and former residents who have powerful, while perhaps ambivalent, emotions about their homes. The essence of the failure of public housing is not the buildings, rather racial injustice and urban disinvestment. The rehabilitation of viable public housing projects more truly represents this history of public housing, which is checkered, rather than scorched-earth.
3. Rehabilitation is a more ecologically-sensitive decision. These buildings require significant reinvestment, and rehabilitation will never be less expensive than demolition and new construction. Rehabilitation, however, takes advantage of the embodied energy represented in these buildings, minimizes waste and establishes a “greener” precedent.
4. The community-design principles in these early projects, which create habitable, beautiful green spaces within the dense city, are important precedents as America begins to consider a more sustainable future. Rehabilitation could strip away the veneer of neglect and provide an important example for development for all urban-dwellers, regardless of income.
I agree that America’s housing system benefits from some demolition and decentralization, however, I believe the policy is being used as an ax, where a scalpel could be more effective. The legacy of public housing is not all “error.” Many people used the system successfully at times of great need, and rehabilitation could allow us to evidence this ambivalent history.
Thank you,
Elizabeth Milnarik

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