Essay on Public Housing Projects Fail in Chicago: Segregation Thwarts Progress

The highly recognized public housing projects in Chicago have ultimately failed due to the continued existence of developmental obstacles known as segregation. Majority previously perceived that public housing projects built in Chicago would help accommodate the low-income African-American earners until the time they became more affluent and could afford luxurious lifestyles similar to their neighborhood white Americans. Perhaps, that was the significant idea or theme for the construction of the Ghetto. Although the meaning was later manipulated by the Whites, who segregated duties in the industries located in the cities' central business district regions in a manner that promoted racial discrimination (Vale, 2018), this often left more blacks in the Ghetto regions permanently. Reformers initially perceived the Ghetto as a place of building a stronger integrated and decent homestead by the Blacks who were transferred from the southern areas that levels those of mobile working class, or the creamy whites. Nevertheless, the majority of the public housing in Chicago's cities is today characterized by the vast extent of poverty, violence, criminal activities, communal despairs, to mention a few (Du Bois, 2014).

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

The point is even more outstanding in the high-risk regions. The public housing projects were initially considered as places for accommodating a large volume of the poor category and displaced blacks. In contrast, these cities are now universally viewed as outrageous failures who have devoured human lives and the tax dollars as well. Besides, these cities are currently experiencing barriers which divide people with races, socio-economic status, and power.

In a nutshell, the distinctive wall has put the northern and southern regions different, by the line running amid the cities (Vale, 2018). The wall in this context is not a bricked or steel one, but an indication that differentiation in regards to color and race has grown more comprehensive, making whites to seem like a particular category, by avoiding their interaction with blacks who owns the public houses created.

To make it better, the wall results from the pattern of decision-making techniques that have rampantly isolated low- income earners residing in the ghetto sections of the city with the white communities. In today's world, it is stated in the Persistence of the Ghetto article that the Customs-House Agent CHA, are looking forward to reversing the situation by becoming more sensitive to the low-income earners in respect to their demands (Stanley Ziemba, 2018).

This could result in a series of drastic changes in the public sector, and reestablish the original meaning of Ghetto construction, by removing the barrier. This factor led to the institutionalization of racism and poverty that also contributed to the failure of many housing projects as the CHA proposed more high-rise buildings. Nonetheless, for the success of these efforts, it is believed that the efforts must begin by overcoming the set of psychological barriers that promote racial attitudes, which has always dominated the Chicago wall or black's discrimination.

It could be traced back that most of the highly developed projects in Chicago were completed at around the 1950s and 60s when there was a national attitude of fairness and equality. Sadly, this no longer exists (Stanley Ziemba, 2018). During this time, the federal government funded public projects hugely, not for housing developments in specific but also to the model cities' programs, highways, and education sector. The central aim of this was to advance the American lives at large. The less fortunate or unfortunate people thus enjoyed, and their lives eventually improved significantly.

Well, some African-Americans had jobs; others did not. However, everyone is suffering as the new era is stanchly integrated with public parsimony. This has derailed several significant public works to non-existence or total cancellation. Drastic reduction in the funding habits thus resulted in the fall of many housing projects. The less available funds were used to build more houses within the City' s CBD, for the whites, as blacks were left confiscated in the housing projects initially contributed.

Public housing programs provide tremendous support for national attitude through a consistently built act of social progress (Roberts, 2018). Similarly, its derailment and pinched plight are brought by the current philosophies of retrenchment that exists in Washington and the entire nation. In other words, the benefits between the federal government and successful public housing programs are mutual. CHA is trying to reach a total of 18 needy families in these cities. Surprisingly, all of the families were found to be black (Roberts, 2018). Over 85% of the families headed by a single parent. Accordingly, although the high rises for the building of public houses started in the 1950s, its ancient roots can be linked to the decade of the 1930s, when the first housing unit was established (Roberts, 2018).

Ideally, the original housing projects were racially segregated. The original idea by the real estate industry at around the 1930s hoped that public housing would not compete with the private houses, and they will not be substantially interpreted as well. However, the real estate owners later complained that public housing tampered with the growth of private residences, as some of them were integrated into white neighborhoods (Goheen & Hirsch, 1985).

The federal government thus decided to reduce the number of funds for building the public houses for private houses, to ensure that these projects were primarily owned by the poor. Besides, Neighborhood Composition Rule was established in 1935, to ensure that one, public housing was not significantly integrated, two, projects were banned from doing alterations for the already exiting neighborhood composition (Du Bois, 2014). This factor has contributed to today's public housing, which is openly segregated from white neighborhoods.

These policies made the CHA become a known black territory, and the rate of poverty was increasing as most individuals lost their jobs and now depended on one single parent using about 27% of the total shares present among over 85,000 families. The point of racism intervened in the year 1948 when the federal legislature decided that the Chicago council of authorities could approve housing projects that were newly built in Chicago in other regions. Several aldermen whites suggested that public housing projects be meant for the poorest people only (Du Bois, 2014). Because most blacks were now struggling to survive following the seizing of ongoing housing constructions, they were directly targeted by the new policies, and this acted as the basis of racism.

However, the federal's control of housing projects limited the establishment process of more housing projects. Although there were fights as Wood, the leader of the CHA agency board was always in constant antagonism with the issue of discrimination. This made the Agency Board fire her and replace her with William B. Kean, who collaborated with the city council to reapprove the public housing projects (Massey & Denton, 1993). In the future, plans would not be approved with ease, but the committee was also accorded the full authority to control the sites.

The process promoted Ghettoization. During the decades when Kean ruled, the funding for public housing was cut off, and this further improved the building of more low-income public housing without increasing the overall construction cost (Massey & Denton, 1993). To institutionalize poverty and racism, as some CHA officials called it, further use this to add more high-rise buildings in the ghettos, to keep blacks away from the white neighborhoods. Typically, the local control by the CHA and city council instead of federal authority was a significant influence on the failure of many public housing projects in the city of Chicago.

In summary, the study developed three primary attributes or elements that led to the failure or fall of most city's public housing projects. Economic and political influences regularly drove them. One, underfunding habit of federal council indefinitely stopped the construction of ghettos. The study also devised that, all the projects both in the CBD and the ghettos, were contributed by the federal. Therefore, upon developing public parsimony, it was a great hit, specifically on public housing projects. Two, the shift of power control to the local city council and CHA motivated the growth in the inner city, thus sidelining the housing projects.

Public housing projects were also converted into white's territories, and blacks were shifted to the newly constructed low-quality constructed housing projects which were away from the whites. Three, institutionalism of racism and poverty, by cutting-off the housing project's funding cost and adding more high-rise buildings as a measure of concentrating whites in also led to the fall of other known and famous housing projects like Henry Horner in Chicago. This is because they raised racial attitudes in the city; the plans were, therefore, less considered hence failed.

References

Du Bois, W. E. B. (2014). The Problem of the Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: The Essential Early Essays. Fordham Univ Press.

Goheen, P. G., & Hirsch, A. R. (1985). Making the Second Ghetto: Race and housing in Chicago, 1940-1960. Labour / Le Travail, 15, 234. https://doi.org/10.2307/25140590Massey, D. S., & Denton, N. A. (1993). American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the underclass. Harvard University Press.

Roberts, D. (2018). Housing acts: Performing public housing. Performing Architectures. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474248013.ch-009

Stanley Ziemba, Urban affairs writer. (2018, September 4). How projects rose to failure. chicagotribune.com. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1986-12-02-8603310330-story.html

Vale, L. J. (2018). After the projects. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190624330.001.0001Vale, L. J. (2018). Public housing, redevelopment, and the governance of poverty. After the Projects, 3-41. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190624330.003.0001