No Simple Solutions: Transforming Public Housing in Chicago

by Susan J. Popkin, Kathryn J. Edin (Foreword)

In this book, Sue Popkin tells the story of how an ambitious—and risky—social experiment affected the lives of the people it was ultimately intended to the residents who had suffered through the worst days of crime, decay, and rampant mismanagement of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), and now had to face losing the only home many of them had known. The stories Popkin tells in this book offer important lessons not only for Chicago, but for the many other American cities still grappling with the legacy of racial segregation and failed federal housing policies, making this book a vital resource for city planners and managers, urban development professionals, and anti-poverty activists.

161 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 7, 2016

Reviews

[Yara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very problematic issue: the "Projects" in Chicago. This was the first book I read on the topic; it is very short and can be completed in just a couple of days. All CHA residents - and all humans in general - have the right to respectful living; yet the root problem here remains unsolved. Housing, education, and environment are all factors, yet to solve one we must solve all. It is a systematic problem. Very sad, yet very realistic. All Chicago residents must know about the city they live in, and that is exactly why I started this self-teaching project.
This book does not tackle taboo issues in the projects. It is written strictly from the point of a scholar who can only do and say so much (especially as a white woman!). Gangs were never mentioned in this book, which we know play a vital role in the projects and I felt that some statistics were not given on a completely honest platform.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting housing policy read - learned a lot.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Popkin has a long-term, intensive engagement with public housing and poverty in general, and in Chicago specifically, and it shows: the book is informative and insightful, and the many interview excerpts help to humanize the statistics. At the same time, it’s a little unclear who it is for; there’s not really enough background for somebody coming to this subject for the first time, but the discussion is probably too general for policymakers or academics. Probably the best thing about the book is that it complicates the story of the CHA’s Plan for Transformation as another inevitable failure of Chicago politics, showing both that the program made real and meaningful improvements in the lives of many people and that better housing, alone, isn’t sufficient.

[Mills College Library]

363.50977 P828 2016