Often regarded as an architectural failure, the Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011) seeks to offer a different perspective regarding affordable public
housing, highlighting testimonials from former tenants. Director Chad
Freidrichs employs this purposeful method to unearth the often lost, lived
experiences and illuminate the subsequent powers that tend to shroud them
Thus,
Freidrichs seeks to dismantle the easy tendency of scapegoating (PBS NewsHour,
2011). Pruitt-Igoe cannot be isolated from St. Louis, so it’s downfall cannot
be the fault of one independent source. The director posits two typical
arguments surrounding unsuccessful public-housing feats: “public” or residents.
The simple wording of “public” may carry the connotation of federal failure, blaming
inept government while others consider inhabitants the main proponent in its depletion.
Consequently, Friederichs emphasizes context, analyzing the intersection of
social, political, and economic processes (PBS NewsHour, 2011). Pruitt-Igoe
reflected embodied St. Louis’ dying economy, further concentrating persons of
color with low economic statuses as white flight perpetuated spatial isolation.
One former resident even commented that it was as if they were being punished
for being poor (Freidrichs, 2011). Considered a “desert oasis with all its
newness,” this public housing project soon became a wasteland due to confinement
and lack of resources (2011).
It is no
surprise, then, that I was reminded of Shabazz’s (2015) analysis of Chicago’s
Robert Taylor Homes. Both high-rise structures nurtured racial segregation and surveillance.
Like Pruitt-Igoe, this midwestern city’s housing project was “...synonymous
with crime, disorder, and the existence of violence in the project, all of
which were often blamed on the project’s residents” (2015, p.61). Their materiality
ultimately showcased social and political ideologies of Post-World War II life:
management of an ever-diversifying America. Focusing so much on a “problem” overshadowed
the need of livable spaces, engraining displacement into the idea of urban
renewal (Fraser, 2004). This transforms Robert Taylor Homes and Pruitt-Igoe to “…[spaces]
of inherent contradiction…situated at the intersection of possibility and
punishment, teetering on the brink, swinging between two poles, suck in a netherworld”
(Shabazz, 2015, pp. 69-70). These spaces were not designed with residents in mind but rather gentrification.
If you'd like more information, check-out the documentary at Alden's Media Desk on the fourth floor!
About the film. (2019, November 2). Retrieved from the Pruitt-Igoe Myth:
http://www.pruitt-igoe.com/about.html
Fraser, J. (2004). Beyond gentrification: Mobilizing
communities and claiming space. Urban Geography, 25, 437-457.
Freidrichs, C. (Director). (2011). The Pruitt-Igoe
Myth [Documentary].
PBS NewsHour, (2011, May 3). The Death of an
Architectural Myth. Retrieved from Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_zFIg8N9Rw
Shabazz, R. (2015). Carceral injustice: Between home space
and prison space. In Spatializing
Blackness (pp. 55- 75). Urbana:
University of Illinois Press.
Pruitt-Igoe.
(2019, November 1). Retrieved from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe
“These spaces were not designed with residents in mind but rather gentrification”. This last sentence totally resumes why Pruitt-Igoe was doomed to be a failure. In fact, the local government when planning the Pruitt-Igoe project did not have in mind the well-being of the targeted population but instead the economic growth and gentrification of the city of Saint louis. The local leaders believed in the growth of the urban industrialization that followed the end of the world war II and considered that the industrial workers (mostly poor) must live in the center of the city next to their work. This public housing project was a direct response to the need of descent house for workers but was not meant to help the conditions of the poor. First, the maintenance of the buildings gradually relied on tenants’ rents who were too poor to keep up with the high costs. The Pruitt-Igoe habitants progressively saw their environment deteriorate and their living standard declining. Secondly, the condition to move in Pruitt-Igoe were too drastic and inform us how the government at this time were defining home for “the poor black”. Indeed, one major rule was that no able-bodied man could live in the house if the woman receive aid for the children. This regulation forced many men to leave their family resulting in the destruction of the family pedestal in the African American community in saint louis. Children were growing up without the full support of their fathers. “home” for the “poor black” was reduced to having a house, denying them the right of having a united family with both parents. The regulations and experience of Pruitt-Igoe also portrayed how segregated the city was and the double standards in the public administration when coming to black people. The “poor man penthouse” turned out to be a punishment for poor.
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