
Three decades or so ago, it suited the political times to declare American social housing dead. If not entirely gone and forgotten, still-remaining projects have ever since been treated as zombie dwelling places, to be shunned along with their hapless tenants and prodded towards extinction.
Today, social housing is grudgingly being afforded a little respect. More than a little, in fact, it’s not unusual to hear that these ill-treated, decaying structures are ‘desperately needed.’ The article linked below describes New York City’s 173,000 surviving units: “In practical terms, they’re irreplaceable.”
Unfortunately, the US federal government seems trapped in a zombie-hunting time warp, still scorning the depression era enlightenment that triggered government responsibility for housing low and no income citizens.
Determined to diminish as far as possible any national responsibility, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has instituted a form of social housing cannibalism. Housing authorities engage with the private sector to eat chunks of themselves in order to repair their decaying bodies. It’s a clever federal government recipe for a zombie-killing: make it eat itself to death.
There is, however, another, more intelligent solution: recognize the error in assuming that public housing was and is a degenerate-infested monster. The challenge: accept its necessity, learn from three-quarters of a century of progress, which included many mis-steps. Build it again, new. And better.
That premise is the basis of a thought-provoking article in CURBED: New York City Needs A Public Housing Renaissance1
Footnotes
- Karrie Jacobs, author of the Curbed article, argues that the idea “government can’t do anything right” has become embedded in our thinking. She also thinks that idea needs to change. She might be interested in the work of economist Mariana Mazzucato, who argues that governments are innovation leaders. For more, see Is Government, Not Free Enterprise, The Engine Of Innovation?