Jemin Na’s Reviews > High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing > Status Update

Page 179 - 183
Candyman (1992)
After Hours (1985): "tapped into a phobia held by this new Yuppie class-a white office worker finds himself marooned in a yet-to-be-gentrified section of downtown Manhattan. "NONE OF IS SAFE," one of the endless tabloid headlines blared during the hysteria around the Central Park Jogger case."

"It was the spring of 1991, and people in Chicago were fiending as well for Michael Jordan and the Bulls...The basketball movie "Heaven Is a Playground", filmed on location at Cabrini-Green, was about to hit theaters,"

Violent crimes the mid 80s- the start of the 90s.
"...the hysteria had cemented into policy. Nearly every state had passed harsher sentencing laws for juvenile offenders; children were being tried as adults and receiving mandatory minimum sentences, including life terms. Pregnant cocaine users were charged with child abuse and even manslaughter."

When They See Us (2019) took place within this sentiment.

"Chicago 21"
Marion Stamps
Harold Washington
"Vrdolyak 29"
William Julius Wilson, "The Truly Disadvantaged"

The Free Street Theatre's musical "Project!"
https://freestreet.org/timeline/free-...

"Since Cabrini-Green and other beleaguered public housing developments in Chicago had vacancies, that's where large numbers of ex-offenders were went. These were people who needed shelter and a fresh start, but also required extensive guidance and counseling; parolees were supposed to be monitored and mentored."

The book's emphasizes the Cabrini-Green residents' lives. Where the children played, what jobs the residents had, how the police treated them and etc. Its scope is broader and more personal than I expected. By broader I mean, so far, I haven't read any clear policy based cause and effect arguments.

"Critics of the day denounced [state-run housing] as government overreach, with the handouts maligned as anticapitalist, socialist, and generally un-American." I think we kind of have to live with each other's differences on this fundamental worldview issue. (We are obviously correct but since they won't change lol) I guess we just have to do the best to make our ideology-driven policies to work well in reality.

"In his first year as president, in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt created the federal Housing Division, as part of the Public Works Administration. By then the shortcomings of the for-profit real estate market were evident in mass evictions and eviction riots, in homeless encampments and in countless neighborhoods like Little Sicily."