Pruitt Igoe Housing ProjectFollowing the end of World War II, there became a demand for housing that drove the wealthy to the suburbs, while the poor found themselves inhabiting slums within the city. Business owners and politicians began seeing the poor housing in the city as an eye sore that was depreciating the value of the surroundings. As such, plans for high-rise low income housing were soon underway in St. Louis. Further igniting this initiative, the Housing Act of 1949 provided funding to build more public housing facilities. To make way for these 33 high-rise buildings in St. Louis, approximately 20 blocks of unsafe and unsanitary slum housing was demolished.
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Design Decision(s) |
In the beginning of the 1950s, Missouri laws mandated that public housing be segregated by race. These laws would continue until 1956, which was a year after all of the buildings were completed. Therefore, the buildings were designed to be separated by race where it was anticipated middle-class white and black residents would be separated.
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Social Impact |
At first, the project was well-received, gaining praise for its success in urban renewal. In 1957, the housing complex was reported to have a 91% occupancy rate. However, it was soon overshadowed by rapid decline. Occupancy rates plummeted within the first ten years of the project’s conception. Vandalism lined the hallways, broken elevators were used as bathrooms, and trash piled up all around the complexes. Crimes were committed in the poorly lit stairwells and hallways. Glass was busted out of most of the windows on all facades of each building. The streets surrounding the complex were avoided by vehicular traffic, including police and emergency response vehicles, because people would drop heavy or inflamed objects onto passer-byers below.
Within 30 years of being built, each of these buildings was demolished. Using explosives, the buildings were imploded over a three year span. Adaptation had not been considered for any of the structures, but one hope of the staged demolition process was that some of the problems resulting from having such high density would dissolve. However, this proved false, and even though the project had cost over $57 million, it still was eliminated. The damage from lack of maintenance was so severe that salvaging the building was not considered. To this day, the site remains mostly vacant, showing the scars of a past failed project. Redemption may arrive, however, as plans for a new medical campus are underway for the neglected site. Tenants moved to these high-rise apartments after living in smaller scale neighborhoods. The community dynamic in high rise towers was much different than living in smaller-scale homes. A sense of ownership of the hallways, stairwells, and grounds was not felt by the tenants in the way they may have felt ownership of their sidewalks, lawns, or streets in a neighborhood setting. Skip-stop elevators were placed in this project to prevent bottle-necking in vertical circulation. However, this meant that some residents would have to walk a few flights of stairs after taking the elevator to a given floor. Stairwells and hallways were poorly lit and had no surveillance, making them ideal environments for mugging and other serious crime. Ventilation was poor throughout the buildings. There was no central air conditioning, so tenants relied on opening, sometimes breaking, windows to get air flow in the warmer months. Heaters often broke as well, leaving tenants to rely on their stoves for heat. In the winter, icicles grew from the broken window frames. Cheap fixtures had initially been installed to keep costs low. However, these were easily broken. Bored youths would oftentimes break things for fun, so eventually those in charge would start installing indestructible fixtures. When these broke, however, they were not hurriedly fixed or replaced and the requests were often ignored. Maintenance issues led to infrastructure issues. A series of major water line and sewer line breaks devastated the interiors of the buildings. Raw sewage flowed throughout some of the floors, leaving clean-up crews and tenants with major health and safety issues to tackle. Amenities were non-existent on the site initially. It took considerable petitioning for meager, insufficient playground and basketball courts to be installed. This further led to children and young adults getting involved in trouble, rather than having a safe place to play. Lastly, copper wire was stolen from the walls of the buildings. These would then be sold for money, leaving the units non-occupiable. While the Housing Act had provided funding to build these apartment buildings, it did not authorize any funding for their maintenance or upkeep. Funding for maintenance, security, and other needs was to come from tenant rent payments. Planners for this project overestimated the growth of cities at this time, overlooking the trend of moving to the suburbs. City population was on the decline, while policies favored middle class home ownership for white families. When the decision was made to desegregate housing and the legislation was approved, most whites left in large droves instead of cohabitating with people of another race. Property values had a tendency to decline in areas where primarily black families lived, even if whites lived in the same buildings or neighborhoods. Predominantly black communities tended to face unfair challenges, like higher food prices, worse hospitals or schools, and less police protection. Further, jobs began moving away from the city and more towards the suburbs, hence further away from inner city black communities. Another issue came from the application process. Applications tended to be favored if there was not a working man in the household. As a result, many men would leave their families so that their wives and children would have their applications accepted. Disrupting the family structure may have perpetuated the violence and crime in children and young men. Early policies also kept tenants from owning appliances that were becoming more common, like TV and telephones because there came an expectation through agencies that you needed to be exceptionally poor to live in these apartment units. Isolation and fear were felt by adults and kids alike because of the way the public housing system policies policed residents. There were not nice surrounding amenities for residents to escape to so kids often got into trouble out of boredom. Vandalism and crime became rampant throughout the buildings until their ultimate demise. |
Resources
Marshall, C. (2015, April 22). Pruitt-Igoe: The troubled high-rise that came to define urban America – a history of cities in 50 build- ings, day 21. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/22/pruitt-igoe-high-rise-urban-america-history-cities
JS. (2011, October). American public housing—Why the Pruitt-Igoe housing project failed | Prospero | The Economist. The Econo- mist. https://www.economist.com/prospero/2011/10/15/why-the-pruitt-igoe-housing-project-failed
Herbers, J. (1970, November 2). The Case History of a Housing Failure (Published 1970). The New York Times. https://www.ny- times.com/1970/11/02/archives/the-case-history-of-a-housing-failure-housing-failure-the-case.html
Joseph Heathcott (2012) Planning Note: Pruitt-Igoe and the Critique of Public Housing, Journal of the American Planning Associa- tion, 78:4, 450-451, DOI: 10.1080/01944363.2012.737972
Allen, M. R., & Kolk, H. A. (n.d.). The Painful Persistence of Pruitt-Igoe’s Long Goodbye. Common Reader. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://commonreader.wustl.edu/c/the-painful-persistence-of-pruitt-igoes-long-goodbye/
Why Did Pruitt-Igoe Fail? (n.d.). HUD USER. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_ edge_featd_article_110314.html
JS. (2011, October). American public housing—Why the Pruitt-Igoe housing project failed | Prospero | The Economist. The Econo- mist. https://www.economist.com/prospero/2011/10/15/why-the-pruitt-igoe-housing-project-failed
Herbers, J. (1970, November 2). The Case History of a Housing Failure (Published 1970). The New York Times. https://www.ny- times.com/1970/11/02/archives/the-case-history-of-a-housing-failure-housing-failure-the-case.html
Joseph Heathcott (2012) Planning Note: Pruitt-Igoe and the Critique of Public Housing, Journal of the American Planning Associa- tion, 78:4, 450-451, DOI: 10.1080/01944363.2012.737972
Allen, M. R., & Kolk, H. A. (n.d.). The Painful Persistence of Pruitt-Igoe’s Long Goodbye. Common Reader. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://commonreader.wustl.edu/c/the-painful-persistence-of-pruitt-igoes-long-goodbye/
Why Did Pruitt-Igoe Fail? (n.d.). HUD USER. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_ edge_featd_article_110314.html