Why tear down existing North American public housing? Why, to build mixed income housing to replace it. It can provide ample private enterprise profitability to attract free market enterprise to cover a share of the redevelopment costs. It’s become a recent mantra in North America that claims to deliver at least some brand new, truly affordable housing (if often less than was there before). But has climate change and the green revolution created conditions that make the tear-down and re-build mixed housing model unnecessarily expensive?
A researcher in Poland — a satellite of the former Soviet Union — points out that the drab simplicity of communist-era housing offers a potential climate change benefit. That benefit might equally apply to the shrinking stock of existing public housing in North America. Potential benefits might well outweigh the supposed advantages of demolishing ‘tired old’ public housing and assuming that new mixed income housing is the most cost-effective solution.
A massive Soviet engineering feat rebuilt a nation’s housing destroyed in WWII. It was sneered at in North America during and after the red-under-the-bed Cold War period.
The Soviet Union and its client states in Eastern Europe, built huge quantities of cheap-to-build, pre-fabricated, cookie-cutter housing that still exists. Photos in the following article show that old buildings can be freshened up with paint. As well, many of these communities still benefit from Soviet planning strategies, which located public housing in planned neighbourhoods that provided a range of amenities. This Soviet-style planning contrasts with the lack of amenities in many North American public housing neighbourhoods (think food deserts).
Still, the ‘down and dirty’ construction approach to many, if not most, North American public housing projects might offer a valuable alternative to tear-down-and-build-new mixed income projects. Read more in an article by Professor Krzysztof Barnaś in Code Blue: Drab Public Housing Ideal For A Climate Retrofit
Some further evidence in favour of refurbishing: knocking a building down was once a kind of freebee. Not any more. Try ‘Go Green’ Bleeds Life Into Public Housing ‘Demolition By Neglect’
For an example of ‘green social housing refurbishing’ in North America, try this Hamilton, Ontario project that is receiving international accolades: Is EnerPHit the Future of Affordable Housing?
As for public housing refurbishing while the tenants are on site, try this post: Windsor, Ontario Takes On ‘Green’ Public Housing Refurbishment
