What Is The Pruitt-Igoe Complex?

Sprawl helped me understand what happened in St. Louis because it effected what the government was planning for. They were planning for Pruitt-Igoe to be over populated, and that is how it was going to paying for itself, but with sprawl people where moving away from the area cause them to have to cover charge the people living in Pruitt-Igoe and that is when it started

From 1890 to 1920, cities in the United States experienced a rapid growth that was unprecedented in years previous. This growth was caused by a number of factors and resulted in both positive and negative consequences. Such factors included, industrialization, technological advances, migration and immigration. Although American cities greatly improved by the expeditious urbanization, these factors also developed numerous challenges including pollution, sanitation problems, a need for environmental reform, political corruption, overcrowding, high crime rates and segregation.

There has been a recent phenomenon throughout the United States of gentrification. As older parts of neighborhoods are occupied by new tenants with money, the neighborhood changes and loses its old character. Those who might have lived in those neighborhoods their entire lives are pushed out as rents begin to skyrocket and the surroundings begin to change. This has happened in many neighborhoods. One of the most well known is San Francisco, where technology companies have brought in new software engineers that have caused local rents to skyrocket and people to move out of the area. However, just as importantly has been the influx of new money to Brooklyn, where local neighborhood changes have forced people from their homes, traditional music to be replaced, and old businesses to go bankrupt.

Another flawed institution was the Chicago Housing Authority, which demolished public housing to replace it with recreation (262). Not only did they take away the only homes the poor had, but also ineffectively relocated them to a community where they could thrive.

Second, the development of new public transit systems, was important in shaping the design of our cities and the growth of our cities by enabling people to move further away from the inner city. Early on, large cities had very little and inadequate transportation. Their main source of transportation were horse drawn wagons and walking. As a result, most people lived or took housing near downtown, which was where most of the working establishments were located. This made the big cities very congested. However with the breakthrough of the “el”, electric streetcars, and subways, around 1867, cities began to open up more. Those who were fortunate enough to move out of the slums and into better surrounding neighborhoods, did so. The more affluent of the white-collar classes moved into the suburban areas. In contrast, many of the very wealthy continued to live in city mansions. The new transit systems in most cities allowed people to escape the chaos of urban life and provided potential for growth of our cities.

Slum conditions * Comprehensive redevelopment? Uphill 1970s – what problems with it * Renovate *

In the constantly changing economy of cities, the growth of city housing is oftentimes neglected. In “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification” Timothy Williams recounts how gentrification has evolved over the years. Mentioning how cities have changed in order to appease the younger professionals, Williams shows how the city itself is in jeopardy due to the tax increases. Slowly loosing their faithful residents as well as historic culture cities face a big deal. Williams gives quotes from faithful residents, “…long time homeowners are victims of the success story”, (Williams 346). In “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification”, Williams uses his credible quotes and modern statistics to generate the reader’s emotions, with desire to change how city officials go about gentrification in culturally infused cities.

American urban housing system was not in a very good state at the end of Second World War. Hundreds of thousands

Chicago’s notorious reputation for crime-ridden, poor quality public housing is a direct result of public policy during the reign of former mayor Richard J. Daley. Instead of using public housing to give lower income families a decent place to live, as was the intent of most public housing at the time, it was used to segregate blacks by concentrating them into certain parts of the city. Cabrini-Green was obviously one of these places. The architecture of Cabrini-Green also played a part in the inevitable doom of the project. City officials realized that the renowned architect LeCorbusier’s “island in the sky” concept of urban community, where giant high-rises grew out of the ground with enormous green space in between them, would be good for public housing. In reality, the green space separated the projects from the rest of the city, concentrating slums into ugly concrete structures that quickly fell into disrepair, resulting in “hulking high-rises in poor black neighborhoods.” Also, 95% of those living in public housing in

Industrialization and urbanization went hand in hand. Cities offered large numbers of workers for new factories, and as more factories were built, more workers, both native –born and immigrant, moved to cities looking for jobs. Cities provided transportation for raw materials and manufactured goods, as well as markets for the consumption of finished products. By 1930 more than half of all Americans; including one million African Americans that had moved from the rural South to Western and Northern cities in search of jobs and to escape Jim Crow laws, lived in cities. The shift from rural life to urban life had both positive and negative effects. Some of the negative effects of urbanization included crowded, unsanitary living conditions for workers, and corrupt municipal, or city politics. The construction of decent housing was far below the fast paced growth of city populations, the cities were not prepared for that. The city housing primarily consisted of multifamily buildings called tenements. These tenements were usually deteriorated, located in poor working class neighborhoods, severely overcrowded, and inundated with violent crime. Cities also lacked adequate sanitation and water facilities. Poor families that lived in the slums could not afford

Pruitt Igoe was a housing project in Saint Louis that failed horribly. The housing complex was built to accommodate low income families but was expected to be at full capacity at all times. In 1956 Missouri desegregated public housing which scared a lot of people and led to a decline in Saint Louis’s population and with the decline of residents their was a lack of income for the housing committee which led to custodians being paid less causing a decline in the maintenance. The rise of crime began to happen in Pruitt Igoe after residents had left it had got so out of hand that it was too dangerous for people to live there so by 1972 the buildings started to be demolished. That was the downfall of Pruitt Igoe it just so happened to be built

St. Louis was established on the west bank of the Mississippi river. In the 19th century, St. Louis was largely developed mostly due to its busy port and trade connections (wikipedia.com). Due to advantageous geographical location and industrialization, St. Louis was the 4th largest city in the United States in the 20th century. In the mid-20th century, governors started to rebuild downtown with large-scale construction. Lots of parking and office buildings were built to create a fine working environment which in turn attracts people moving to St. Louis. However, from late 1960s, downtown St. Louis started to losing its power. Suburbanization caused a big loss of population, which marked the beginning of recession of the city. Now, St. Louis

In the empirical article, by Marcus Anthony Hunter “black philly after the philadelphia negro”, Hunter argues that the Seventh Ward underwent an urban and social change that led to political changes, but all of them coming at their own costs. The account of The Seventh Ward severing as, at one point, the “slum” or the “ghetto” of Philadelphia come from research that Da Bois brought to the table in 1899. Being a primarily African-American populated area with limited resources, the Seventh Ward, as a consequence had poor living conditions in some findings, “insufficient water supply and toilet facilities, defective sanitary equipment, overcrowding, leaky roofs..etc.(pp.4 [pdf])”The political view of these conditions lead to reform, in the 1920s,

Overall, both plans aim to improve Cleveland and to provide residents with a better quality of life. This being said, these plans are not perfect therefore, they are not immune to criticism. In regards to the Cleveland Policy Planning Report, it would have been beneficial for the commission to include, if only briefly, some opinions of the affected residents. I think the recommendations offered by the commission were appropriate however, this type of thinking relates back to one of the previously mentioned prominent issues of advocacy planning which is that some groups may not agree with or want other groups to advocate on their behalf. One reason for this is that the initial group may believe that the advocating group does not accurately understand or represent their cause. The commission may have had good intentions due to the issues associated with that era but, in planning in general, it is dangerous to make these types of assumptions. Analyzing the Connecting Cleveland 2020 Citywide Plan, one issue to note is the vastness of the plan. Obviously, the plan looks to a set of goals to reach by 2020 however, there is no revision of

In 1949, the Urban Redevelopment Act was passed. This act focused on removing residential slums and providing safe and sanitary housing for people. However this Act was not well thought off at all. It was severely criticized as it did not reconstruct the promised 9 new units of low cost housing for every dwelling torn down.