There seems to be little evidence about the state of public housing that gave Goetz an overall positive impression. The mention of “quiet successes” and “loud failures” denotes social imbalance and the likelihood of destructive and disruptive events that occur in public housing environments gaining more attention than those casting an uplifting light over the community.
World War II and the United States commanding role as ‘The Arsenal of Democracy’ laid a direct pathway to the suburbs and out of public housing for working class White citizens, once the war ended. The VA and FHA gave priority to Whites that allowed them to move out of the cities in extraordinary numbers and into their own homes, giving rise to the term ‘White Flight’ among those in the housing and real estate marketplace. Cities with large Black populations saw strong surges in the White exodus from the inner city, especially when Federal programs supported urban renewal (demolishing slums, reducing industrial pollution, restoring and beautifying the ‘downtown’ areas of major metropolitan centers) and real estate developers were making
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“Public housing was not originally built to house the ‘poorest of the poor,’ but was intended for select segments of the working class (United States 1937; Bauman 1987; Atlas and Dreier 1992; Marcuse 1995). Specifically, it was designed to serve the needs of the ‘submerged middle class,’ who were temporarily outside of the labor market during the Depression.” wrote J.A. Stoloff in “A Brief History of Public Housing”. Stoloff sought to explain the true foundation of public housing, in it being primarily focused on middle class families whose economic status had been decimated by the Great