During World War 2, workers were needed for industry and during what was called “The Second Great Migration,” many African Americans moved out of the South to the North and West. This caused an influx of people in the cities and the creation of low-income housing. The concept behind low-income housing was that living in bad neighborhoods made people bad. There was the assumption that bold strokes had to be made to implement this housing, something that was stated by Elizabeth Wood of the Chicago Housing Authority. Under Title 1 of the 1949 Housing Act, there was urban renewal and what people called “slum clearance”. It was intended to provide housing for veterans, immigrants and internal migrants.
The principles for almost all of the low-income housing in the US followed Le Corbusier’s Tower in the Park. Le Corbusier and other modernist city planners considered 19th century cities to be dirty, congested, unhealthy, lacking in sunlight, and overall irrational. Le Corbusier, in his plan City for Three Million, made in 1923, contained different centers, big boulevards, and a park at the center. There was a lot of nature and it had changing heights in the buildings. The Voisin Plan of 1925 contained divided zones with the inside for green spaces and skyscrapers. In the “Charter of Athens” by CIAM, there also featured a separation by zone, tall buildings, and more space for traffic and leisure. This way of communal living was shown in L’Unite D’Habitation, designed by Le Corbusier. In this building, the apartments were slotted in with cross sections to emphasize the idea of collectivity. There was a shared “street” and a roof terrace which provided communal space.
The implementation of low-income housing similar to L’Unite D’Habitation in the US however was vastly different. First, the developers had no incentive to replace so-called slums with housing that low income people could afford. Additionally, the housing did not include proper communal spaces, nor did it include the green spaces that the Tower in the Park model envisioned. What was left from Le Corbusier’s idea was the high-rise towers that were meant to fit as many people as possible. One example of such is Pruitt-Igoe, built in St. Louis. The first design of Pruit-Igoe called for a mixture of high-rise, mid-rise and walk-up structures but the budget did not allow for it (Bristol 184). Instead, what was used was 33 identical eleven-story elevator buildings that included a skip-stop elevator and internal galleries. This structure was intended to create “individual neighborhoods” within each building (185). The skip-stop elevators proved to be dangerous and the galleries were breeding grounds for crime. There was also the “elimination of amenities such as children’s play areas, landscape and ground-floor bathrooms” (185). Aside from that, “the cost cutting targeted points of contact between the tenants and the living units” (185). Funding remained a big problem in low-income housing where for example, in Henry Horner Homes in Chicago, the Chicago Housing Authority was eventually unable to fund renovations leading many residents to move out. The same would be true of Robert Taylor Homes, another housing project in Chicago that was composed of high-rises but were neglected by the city. Like Pruitt-Igoe, most of the residents at Robert Taylor Homes was of single mothers.
Low-income housing is usually considered a failure due to its architecture. At Pruitt-Igoe, the blame was put on the undersized skip-stop elevators, the galleries, and the amenities (186). They were deemed as unsafe due to their design. This is a myth that perpetuates much of low-income housing. The myth specifically to Pruitt-Igoe ignores the problems and budget of the St. Louis Housing Authority (187). It also ignores the fact that, as pointed out by sociologist Lee Rainwater, improved housing conditions does nothing if not followed by efforts to raise income levels (187). In addition, much of the design was determined by the St. Louis Housing Authority and the federal Public Housing Administration, meaning the architects did not control Pruitt-Igoe’s isolation, its density levels, its lack of amenities or the use of high-rise elevator buildings (189). The idea that low-income housing is a failure because of its architectural design is to not acknowledge the social and political issues around poverty. It also ignores the fact that the projects were deemed to fail if funding was not available. In all the low-income projects I have mentioned, funding was lacking, amenities were not put in, and there was no communal space to generate a community. It is far from the communal living idea that Le Corbusier envisioned. The design behind the buildings already implied failure, especially in Pruitt-Igoe where doorknobs would fall off at first use. Proper communal spaces were not in place either. It is almost as though the people overseeing low-income housing decided to encompass the philosophy of “good enough”. They expected people to move into their “good enough” buildings and somehow magically be freed from poverty.
Works Cited
Bristol, Katharine G.. “The Pruitt-Igoe Myth.” Journal of Architectural Education 44 (1991): 163-171.