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Analysis Of The Documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

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The documentary, The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, asks the big question regarding this controversial housing project: why did it fall? The Pruitt-Igoe housing project was meant to help impoverished people. Through this, the housing committee wanted to provide a safe place for kids to play, families to live, and most of all allow the city of St. Louis to prosper. Instead of Pruitt-Igoe cleaning up the city and providing more job opportunities, it created concentrated poverty and hyper segregation. Along with these demographic factors, the lack of maintenance and end of World War II added additional pressures to Pruitt-Igoe. After opening, the maintenance crew slowly dwindled away, leaving the buildings in filth for its residents. Trash was no longer removed, …show more content…

The housings basic services were allowed to deteriorate, little assistance was offered to residents or Pruitt-Igoe generally, and those who lived there learned to fear the environment they were forced to live in. Since the location of Pruitt-Igoe was in a transitional zone, it led to the concentration of poor individuals, while governmental services followed the white middle class to the suburbs. When the services left, “broken windows” started to occur, encouraging others to break more windows and vandalize the surrounding area. Leading to the eventual sky-rocketing crime, evacuation, and demolition of Pruitt-Igoe. There are two aspects that I feel needed further information: the factor of racial heterogeneity explaining an area of transition and, secondly, when disorder can be stopped in the broken window theory. From the documentary, it appeared as if Pruitt-Igoe housed almost exclusively African Americans. It may be possible that racial homogeneity is also a factor of inequality, leading to crime. The second aspect, when crime should be stopped to prevent community deterioration, may be that this theory can only be reversed if the first signs of disorder are stopped. The push back of “unbreakable” objects seemed only to encourage crime in Pruitt-Igoe, so the attempt to stop crime may have come too late. The extent of how far crime may go before it is irreversible should be studied for this theory. Overall, Pruitt-Igoe is a sad story of racial disadvantage leading to the fall of another much promising opportunity for the

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• For example, Oscar Newman's research for the U. S. Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment in the late 1960s included a 740-unit public housing high rise development, Pruitt-Igoe, which never achieved more than 60% occupancy and was torn down about 10 years after its construction at a loss of $300 million, because it had rampant crime. Across the street, an older, smaller row-house complex, Carr Square Village, occupied by an identical population, was fully occupied and free of crime during and after the construction, occupancy, and demolition of Pruitt-Igoe. Newman's research regarding multiple communities, including Pruitt-Igoe, into what caused these differences in crime resulted in a new, but related, term of "defensible space. This

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For my journal entry I am going to talk about the Pruitt Igoe video on public housing development. The residence that lived in St. Louis Missouri Pritt Igoe where poor and uneducated families that relied on public assistance to get by. The 1949 housing act that the government granted give the people of Pruitt Igoe hope. One theory I see in this film is social disorganization, “which is social change, social conflict, and lack of social consensus as the root of the crime and deviance, is closely associated with the ecological school of criminology” (bookshelf). In this theory you have zone where unique characteristics wherein unique populations and typical from of behavior could be found.

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There has to be a realistic solution that can be put into motion to benefit everyone involved. Referring again to his article “Is Gentrification All Bad?” Davidson argues that urban renewal, if done right, is not a monstrous custom that it is painted to be; nevertheless, he reasons that gentrification depends on who does it, how they do it, and why they do it. As a resident in New York, a city where gentrification is as widespread as the common cold in winter, Davidson speculates that those who go into a neighborhood with the intention to renovate houses, or abandoned buildings ought to have a good reason for it. The author points out that “Gentrification does not have to be something that one group inflicts on another…” (Davidson 349), rather, he suggests that everyone, the gentrifiers and the locals, be on the same page when it comes to developing their

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Old Sacramento had a lot of changes to remove everything that was in the past to the future. “The Invention of Old Sacramento: A Past for the Future” by Lee M. A. Simpson and Lisa C. Prince, wrote on how old Sacramento changed throughout the years. Old Sacramento is an historical site that reproduces growth of an inner-city with environmental politics and historic preservation movement. Old Sacramento is also a home of successful business during the nineteenth century, due to a district that was created in Old Sacramento.

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Instructions: Please retain questions and numbering. Each question is worth 2.5 points. Incorrect, incomplete and/or unclear answers will lose points. 1. What was the reasoning of the Federal Housing Administration for not permitting African Americans in the newly developed suburbs?

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It is very common for acts of deviance to go on in these types of places. Lonnie was notorious for stealing cars and employing his friends and other members of his community to get rid of his evidence. Lonnie provided crack to the women he raped and murdered so he portrayed deviance in the act of drug dealing as well as murder and rape. The women he picked up were prostitutes and therefore instigated participation in illegal activities. The lack of education within the community can lead to deviance in the sense that criminals don’t have a chance to excel and escape their current class system.

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In his piece “A Center City Walking Tour,” Elijah Anderson discusses the concept of “cosmopolitan canopies.” He takes us through a written tour of Philadelphia, going street by street in great detail. He begins his tour from Penn’s Landing and ends on 52nd Street. As he discusses these areas, a number of themes and issues can be identified. As Anderson moves on in the tour, the ideas of race and class become particularly prominent.

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At the beginning of this period, whites were the dominant race of the city. Almost 90% of the city’s population was white. However, over the decades, a large majority of the white population left the city. For example, from 1950-1990, the white population dropped by 48%. Nevertheless, the black population has been increasing steadily over the decades.

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The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is a documentary that explores public housing in Saint Louis, Missouri, in particular the history of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex. Pruitt-Igoe was a public housing project billed as the perfect solution in the early 1950s, to solve the problems of slums in Saint Louis and to bring people back into a city that had seen a population decline from previous years. Saint Louis was an ageing city desperate to regain their postwar prominence as a bustling city, but faced many challenges pertaining to the racial makeup of the segregated city and the loss of many jobs to suburban areas. Many whites had begun to participate in what is now referred to as “white flight”, or the migration of middle class whites to

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For the last 170 years, maybe longer, there has been a recurring displacement of local inhabitants from their native land or community. Motives ranging from greed in relations to an expansion of land and wealth or just wanting a change in “scenery”. While such actions can indeed have a positive outcome on the person doing the action it may not work out for the people it's happening to. Such examples are The Trail of Tears & the modern day Gentrification of the Chicago South Side. The Trail of Tears was the forced relocation of thousands of Native Americans from their native land in Southeastern U.S to the Mississippi River.

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The initial thought of why crime was so bad in the past is because of segregation and what role it played. Blacks were being treated less than whites, where white people were making more money than blacks. These conditions sparked violence in the city. Another cause of violence was the work environment and how it was being left unnoticed.

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Wealth is one of the factors why residential segregation is an increasing problem. Golash- Boza explains, “Residential segregation happened when different groups of people are sorted into discount neighborhoods” (271). It is because of housing segregation

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Lance Freeman, an associate professor of urban planning in Columbia, wanted to investigate if there was any displacement going on in two predominantly black neighborhoods that was briskly gentrifying. Much to his dismay, he couldn’t find any correlation between gentrification and displacement. What was surprising to Freeman was his discovery, “poor residents and those without a college education were actually less likely to move if they resided in gentrifying neighborhoods”. (Sternbergh, 19) Freeman adds, “The discourse on gentrification, has tended to overlook the possibility that some of the neighborhood changes associated with gentrification might be appreciated by the prior residents.” (Sternbergh, 19)

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Addressing the Root Causes of America’s Housing Crisis The housing crisis is a growing epidemic today, affecting millions of people across the United States. The housing crisis is a result of several factors such as high housing costs, lack of affordable housing, and homelessness. This essay explores the cause and effect of the housing crisis in America, as well as potential solutions to address this social issue using the apocalyptic thinking method by Robert Jensen. Jensen’s method of apocalyptic thinking is about acknowledging that our current systems and structures are unsustainable and will inevitably lead to collapse (Jensen, 2013).

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Pruitt-Igoe housing project is the most shameful public housing project ever built. This postwar federal public-housing program was completed in 1956. Pruitt-Igoe was designed as a massive high-rise project. Some blame the Swiss architect, Le Corbusier, and his conception of a modern city of high rises. Others point to segregationist policies aimed at confining African-American residential areas to the inner city.

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