New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice, and Public Housing Policy

by Edward G. Goetz

Public housing was an integral part of the New Deal, as the federal government funded public works to generate economic activity and offer material support to families made destitute by the Great Depression, and it remained a major element of urban policy in subsequent decades. As chronicled in New Deal Ruins, however, housing policy since the 1990s has turned to the demolition of public housing in favor of subsidized units in mixed-income communities and the use of tenant-based vouchers rather than direct housing subsidies. While these policies, articulated in the HOPE VI program begun in 1992, aimed to improve the social and economic conditions of urban residents, the results have been quite different. As Edward G. Goetz shows, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and there has been a loss of more than 250,000 permanently affordable residential units. Goetz offers a critical analysis of the nationwide effort to dismantle public housing by focusing on the impact of policy changes in three cities: Atlanta, Chicago, and New Orleans.

Goetz shows how this transformation is related to pressures of gentrification and the enduring influence of race in American cities. African Americans have been disproportionately affected by this policy shift; it is the cities in which public housing is most closely identified with minorities that have been the most aggressive in removing units. Goetz convincingly refutes myths about the supposed failure of public housing. He offers an evidence-based argument for renewed investment in public housing to accompany housing choice initiatives as a model for innovative and equitable housing policy.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Social Justice, Urban Studies, Urban Planning

257 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2013

Reviews

[jillian krinsky:) · Rating 5 out of 5]

it’s about what i expected, i had read many of these chapters in classes prior so it felt good to read the completed saga. shoutout ed.

[Emily Bragg · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's easy to criticize different approaches, but it's misleading to imply that locations such as Techwood Homes were stable. I'm not very familiar with a lot of the other public housing systems listed, but there were too many omissions in an anti-mixed-income slant in the Atlanta sections to make me trust that the other sections aren't similarly biased.

Also, an entire chapter on gentrification where the premise was "well, at first it was entirely public housing, and now it's mixed income - surprisingly, the average income is now higher!" was the most tautological waste of pages I've possibly ever read. It specifically did not talk about cultural effects of gentrification, and in fact emphasizes that a lot of the 'gentrifiers' were black in predominantly black areas, but it's intent on making it sound like a negative thing without really discussing negative effects. It's a difficult problem, because you don't want people who have lived in an area getting pushed out of their homes because they can't afford it, but concentrated poverty has its own negative impact that has to be at least considered.

It would be an interesting discussion starter, but I know too many relevant facts about the Atlanta locations that were omitted to make a point that they would have complicated. It's a complicated issue; leaving out one side of the argument entirely instead of answering it and saying why your solution is better oversimplifies the issue and only is convincing to people who are already on your side of the issue.

[DW Rowlands · Rating 4 out of 5]

About what I expected. Sadly, America sucks.

[Nss2108 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good synthetic work on the racial factors that drove the abandonment of public housing for market focused measures. The kind of key things that stood out to me were the deliberate creation of vacancies in public housing building by public housing agencies (!) to argue that public housing was ineffective and thus should be demolished, as well as the failure to replace demolished public housing with an equivalent number of new units. Most shocking though was the revelation that the civic center of downtown Atlanta (world of coke, the aquarium) is on the site of demolished public housing. The book argues that the crisis narrative for public housing was deliberate and constructured, and fails to account for the ways that public housing, for the most part, worked.

[Nicholas Bilka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good read for the contrary argument to the prevailing conventional wisdom about public housing in the United States. Goetz marshals numerous examples, studies and stories to make the case for the importance of public housing and the detrimental impact that redevelopment can have on some families. Goetz overstates his case at times, and is not as understanding as he could be in considering the political and budgetary constraints policymakers and practitioners had to work within. Nevertheless, in an era of affordable housing crisis in many parts of America, his defense of government provided housing is an argument worth considering.

[Derek Moretz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important read for those interested in a critical perspective.

Excellent supporting data and great use of qualitative and quantitative data. Wish there were more detailed recommendations for improvement of public housing communities.