January 10, 2005

GO DOWN, MOSES GET:

14 Cabrini high-rises to close (KATE N. GROSSMAN, January 10, 2005, Chicago Sun-Times)

The end for Cabrini-Green, a national symbol of public housing gone bad, is near.

Five decaying buildings will close this month. Another nine are due to close later in the year. In 2005, the Chicago Housing Authority hopes to demolish all those Near North Side buildings, on top of five already gone.

If all goes as planned -- and that's a big if -- that will leave just 165 families in three high-rises by year's end.

At its height, Cabrini housed 15,000 people in 3,500 apartments.


The New Deal/Great Society spat out bad ideas faster than a cat does hairballs, but none were worse than concentrating young poor people in inner-city highrises.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 10, 2005 11:09 AM
Comments

And while I agree with your condemnation of public housing policy, Cabrini Green is actually being knocked down because it's located on the near north side in what would otherwise be a very desirable neighborhood. It's going to be turned into very expensive condos.

The developers got to Richie Daley. Which you may regard as further evidence of his essentially Republican nature since the conversion from slum to yuppie home sites was approved once Richie's allies had gotten theirs.

Posted by: Ray Clutts at January 10, 2005 3:19 PM

Ray:

They're coming down all over America.

Posted by: oj at January 10, 2005 4:25 PM

Chicago, like many other cities, has been gentrifying for some time. And the old projects have been coming down since the early-mid nineties. This is neither new nor unexpected.

Posted by: Chris Durnell at January 10, 2005 4:53 PM

OJ: you have conflated history. The new deal put up public housing for respectable working class families. screw up and you were out. In the 60s the courts took over and discovered that public housing was a unalienable civil right. Bingo public housing became synonymous with social pathology.

Ray: They are tearing down the high rises along the Dan Ryan as well.

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at January 10, 2005 10:07 PM

The initial years of my life were spent in apartment complexes in the City. Nobody felt a need to destroy them and they weren't nests of social pathology. Most NYers of my dad's generation grew up in multifamily housing of far lower quality than Cabrini Green was. Robert, I think once again you have stumbled onto the truth.

Posted by: Bart at January 11, 2005 6:52 AM

They were paying rent or owned them.

Posted by: oj at January 11, 2005 8:45 AM
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